
Ci 



ass.. 



ACS 



Book. , H7^ 1l7 



GopyriglitJi^- 



COFtRlGRT DEPOSni 



Ill 



Speeches of 
James H. Hoyt 



IV 



This edition is limited to 27^ Copies. 
Number is presented 

To—^ 



Selections from 

the 

Speeches and Papers 

of 

James Humphrey Hoyt 

1850—1917 






PRINTED FOR 

PRIVATE CIRCULATION 

CLEVELAND, OHIO 

1922 



^C■a 



Copyright 1922, By 

Elton Hoyt, 2nd 

Cleveland, O. 



DEC 26 72 

C1A692540 



VII 



To the Memory of My 
Father and Mother 



IX 



FOREWORD 

Since my father^ s untimely deaths in 1917, many of 
his friends have expressed to me hozv much his presence 
was missed at occasions where formerly his spoken word 
served to entertain, to amuse, and to instruct. The 
thought of presenting them with some remembrance of 
this quality in permanent form has brought about the 
printing of this book. 

It is not intended in any sense as an indication of 
his literary ability. Much of the material has been 
gathered from newspaper clippings, from pencilled 
notes, and from speeches dictated to his secretary, which 
in the making were often changed beyond recognition. 

It is for his friends-^those who know without ex- 
planation that his written speeches were transformed in 
delivery, that his humour, his sympathy, in short, his 
personality^ cannot he found in these pages, without the 
ability, in retrospect, to see his smile and hear his voice. 

If it will serve as a reminder of his friendship for 
them, its publication will have been justified. 

Elton Hoyt, 2d. 
Cleveland^ Ohio, 

November 3, 1922. 



XI 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Foreword ......... 

J. H. Hoyt — an appreciation by H. H. McKeehan . 
Section 

I Reserve Power. Valedictory at Brown Uni- 

versity ....... 

Historical Addresses 

II Our First Minister to France 

III Christopher Columbus 

IV Abraham Lincoln 

V Washington, Lincoln and Grant 

VI William McKinley 

VII They Builded Better Than They Knew 

VIII The Birthplace of Real Independence 

Political Addresses 

IX John Hay: Secretary of State 

X Puritan and Filipino ..... 

XI Philippines and the Spanish-American War 

Topical Addresses 

XII The Destruction of the Maine 

XIII Now, and Then 

XIV Specialization ...... 

XV Poetry of Scotland 

XVI Under the Shadow of War . . . . 

Biographical Sketches 

XVII Henry S. Sherman, Soldier, Lawyer, Gentleman 

XVIII Joshua R. Giddings, Patriot, Friend of the 

Slave ....... 

XIX Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna 

XX Charles H. Bulkley 



Page 
ix 

XV 



11 
21 
25 
37 
47 
59 
65 



71 
77 
85 



93 

97 

103 

113 

123 



131 

145 
157 
161 



XII 



TABLE OF CONTENTS— Continued 

Cleveland and the Western Reserve 



Section 










Page 


XXI 


The Western Reserve ..... 165 


XXII 


The Homes of Cleveland .177 


XXIII 


Centennial Preparations . 185 


XXIV 


Prospect and Retrospect .... 193 




The Law and Lawyers 


XXV 


The Lawyer 201 


XXVI 


Literature and the Law .... 209 


XXVII 


The Lady and the Law .211 


XXVIII 


Attorney for the Devil .... 221 




Fragments 


XXIX 


The Toastmaster 229 


XXX 


Joys of the After-Dinner Speaker 






231 


XXXI 


Toasting the Gallant 69th . 






233 


XXXII 


Bankers and the Dutchman 








237 


XXXIII 


Patrick and the Devil . 








240 


XXXIV 


Fiat Money 








242 


XXXV 


Owl and the Democrats 








244 


XXXVI 


Degrees of Honesty 








245 


XXXVII 


Motives 








246 


XXXVIII 


The Teeth Were Truthful 








247 


XXXIX 


The La\\vers Get Hell 








248 


XL 


The Truthful Attorney 








249 




Verses 


XLI 


Jerry Brand's Tale and His Theology . . 253 


XLII 


The Scrap of Paper 


. 261 


XLIII 


The Price . 






. 263 


XLIV 


Freedom of the Seas 






. 265 


XLV and XLVI Songs to J. P. T. 






268-269 


XLVII 


Valentine to J. P. T. . 






. 270 


XLVIII 


The Difference 






. 272 


XLIX 


The Rivals 






. 274 


L 


Inside Out . 






. 276 


LI 


Contentment 






. 278 


LII 


Little Pond Farm 






. 279 


LIII 


Christmas, a Toast 








281 



LIV 



In Memoriam 
Tribute to the Late Mrs. Wm. Edwards 



285 



James H. Hoyt, an Appreciation 



JAMES H. HOYT 

An appreciation 
By Homer H. McKeehan 




AMES H. HOYT was bom in Cleveland, November 10, 
1850, and died a wholly untimely death* in St. Augus- 
tine, Florida, March 21st, 1917. He loved his fam- 
ily and his country; he was devoted to his friends; 
he had no enemies; he revered his God; he Hved a useful life. 
Perhaps no more should be said. 

But one cannot have a long and intimate association with such 
a man without forming a just appreciation of and abiding confi- 
dence in his worth. 

I sought and was given the position of law student in his office 
in 1892, and was associated continuously thereafter with him 
until the time of his death. The memory of this relationship be- 
longs to me, but that it was so long continued was due largely 
to his kindly nature. It is well nigh impossible, when the re- 
lationship has been so rudely severed, to say that fittingly which 
should be said. 

From his father and mother he inherited a keen intellectuality 
and a deep spiritual nature. The father was educated in the law 
and in theology, and, although never ordained to the ministry, 
he frequently filled the pulpits of various churches in Cleveland 
in the absence of the regular pastors. The earliest recollections 
of the son now held by those who were his boyhood companions 
center about the old Baptist Church, of which the father was a 
member, then located upon the present site of the Hickox Build- 
ing. 

* — He was struck on the head with a golf ball, March 10, 
on the St. Augustine Links. Two days later blood 
poisoning set in with complications, from which there 
was no possibility of recovery. — Ed. 



XVI . JAMES H. HOYT 

After attending both public and private schools in Cleveland, 
the son consecutively pursued his studies in Western Reserve 
University, Amherst College, and Brown University, from which 
he received his A.B. degree in 1874. He entered the Law School 
of Harvard University in 1875 and graduated therefrom in 1877. 
He returned to Cleveland and shortly thereafter became a mem- 
ber of the law firm of Willey, Sherman and Hoyt, which firm was 
continued in direct succession down to the time of his death. 
From the first he was successful. He was a skilled and fearless 
advocate, but as Cleveland's business interests developed, the 
demands of his clients became such that he was compelled to de- 
vote his talents almost exclusively to the work of construction 
and advice. He was never a seeker for public office. In 1895 
he became a candidate for the Republican nomination for the 
office of Governor of Ohio, but this was solely due to the insist- 
ence of many loyal friends throughout the State. 

That Mr. Hoyt was eminently successful in the practice of his 
chosen profession is of no moment now, unless we remember 
the causes of that success. He had respect for the law as de- 
clared by the wisdom of the ages. He respected the administra- 
tion of justice. He held courts in high esteem. He was the soul 
of integrity and honor. His client's cause was his cause and to 
them he gave bountifully of all that he possessed. 

Mr. Hoyt was a kindly and a sentimental man. He had a 
genteel instinct. He loved nature; he loved flowers; he loved his 
books, and he drew from them copiously. He was always thought- 
ful and considerate of those who were associated with him in any 
way. He was more than generous — generosity became a passion 
with him. He prized his friends, and delighted in having them 
with him; he always thought he received from them more than he 
gave, but they know better. 

Mr. Hoyt was an emotional man. His emotions did not con- 
trol, but they did soften him. He was spiritual ; he was religious 
in the broadest sense; he was poetic. He was as tender as a 
woman. He would not willingly wound the feelings of anyone. 

Mr. Hoyt was a staunch citizen of Cleveland. He had many 
and flattering offers which would have taken him into fields of 
wider opportunity for himself, but he steadfastly refused to leave 



AN APPRECIATION XVII 

the city of his birth. He was interested in her institutions and 
in her public life. Above all, he was always loyal to his country; 
he never hesitated or faltered whenever his country was threat- 
ened from within or without. Had he lived, there could be no 
doubt that he would have served his country in whatever capac- 
ity he was permitted to serve. Shortly before his death, he was 
presented in the South with his country's emblem, in accepting 
which he promised to wear it until his country should be honor- 
ably freed from danger. And so, the Stars and Stripes in minia- 
ture stones rest peacefully today upon the bosom of him who so 
proudly cherished the gift. 

Outside his work he had the enthusiasm of boyhood. The 
home life is sacred, but can one who has seen such a man playing 
upon the floor as a child with his grandchildren fail to mention it? 
What a memory for them in after years. 

Mr. Hoyt died in the full vigor of his manhood. It is a solace 
to know that in his latter years he was burdened with no care, 
weighed down by no sorrow; he enjoyed life. He wanted to live, 
but this desire was purely unselfish. He wanted to do for others, 
and, so doing, derive pleasure for himself. His place cannot be 
filled. Memory of him cannot fade away. He has left surviv- 
ing him a family whose grief cannot be appeased, but whose 
suffering may be tempered by the remembrance that many, many 
other than they, appreciated his sterling worth. Friends upon 
friends lament his loss with a feeling which cannot be spoken. 
Acquaintances regret the departure of him whom to know was to 
respect. 

James H. Hoyt measured up to the full standard; he was a big 
man. May a coming generation profit by his illustrious example. 

(Reprinted from Cleveland Town Topics, March 31, 1917). 



Not only the poor, but the rich also, we will always 
have with us. In spite of legislation, some men will 
always succeed, and others will always fail. — J. H. H. 



V aledictory at Brown University 



RESERVE POWER 

Valedictory at Brown University^ 
Class Day^ June /p, 1874. 

/^UR lives are thrown into stirring times. The 
^^ scream of the steam- whistle; the hum of the 
flying shuttle; the click of the electric telegraph; the 
countless means by which nature is made to minister 
to man's comfort and convenience, attest our material 
advance. The wide dissemination of learning; the 
increasing strides of science; the freedom of individual 
thought — these tell us, in no uncertain tones, that the 
mind of man is gloriously active. But while rejoicing 
in these signs of the times, let us not forget the lesson 
of the hour; the age is one of extravagance as well — 
extravagance not of money merely, but of heart and 
brain. To use Carlyle's phrase, "the race of life has 
become intense." Yes: we can hear the deep panting 
of our competitor, only just behind us; we can feel his 
hot breath fan our cheek; his hand is stretched out to 
grasp the prize we long to win; and, heedless of the 
future, we expend ourselves utterly to meet the needs 
of the present. 

It was the imfailing custom of Napoleon to hold the 
very flower of his army in reserve; thus prepared for 

1 



RESERVE POWER 

possible defeat, he could strike harder and more boldly 
for expected victory. The Emperor's Guard was the 
terror of Europe, the glory of France, and on the field 
of Waterloo the hopes of the great soldier fell, only 
when this last bulwark of his strength was shivered. 
Yes: to be successful in the race of which we spoke 
anon, we must husband our strength; to be victorious 
in life's battles we must hear behind us the steady and 
encouraging tread of the ''Old Guard." The need of 
patient acquisition and of prudent outlay; the price- 
less value of a saved and hoarded energy; a treasure in 
store from which to draw in time of need; a reserve 
power on which to lean — these are the lessons which 
the successes and failures of our fellowmen bid us lay 
well to heart. 

It seems almost needless to say that one of the main 
sources of this power in reserve is hard work. The 
necessity of labor is a lesson we have been learning 
from our earliest childhood, and every one's experience 
bears witness to its truth. The world, broad as it is, 
has no place for idlers, and he who would accomplish 
anything must surely strive. Such labor is not a 
spasm, it is a life. 

But hard work is not alone sufficient to gather this 
power in reserve. Our labor must be concentrated. 
We must beware lest we strive to accomplish too many 
things; the jack of all trades is proverbially good at 
none, and the man who aims at the whole target will 
surely miss the centre. Our labor must be specific to 

2 



RESERVE POWER 

be effective. We should fix our gaze upon a single 
goal; we should bend every energy to prepare for a 
single race. 

But work, however hard and concentrated, will not 
alone accumulate for us the wealth in store, this power 
in reserve. Labor, to be useful, must be intelligently 
performed. Not work only, but right work is the great 
desideratum of the day. 

We may give too much as well as too little, and the 
spendthrift is scarce better than the idler. A man*s 
labor should be true and manly as well as everything 
else that he does should be manly and true. He should 
blush to buy with thousands, that which hundreds 
might purchase; he should also blush to lavish the 
wealth of his brain on objects not worth the sacrifice. 

Economy of money is the road to wealth; economy 
of labor is the road to success. A man must practice 
intellectual as well as material thrift. He must not 
only increase his fortune by daily acquisitions, he must 
beware lest he decrease his precious brain-power 
reserve by extravagant draughts. 

Let us examine now, as briefly as may be, what are 
the beneficial effects resulting from the possession of 
this reserve power. The historic page is replete with 
examples of lives blasted by — what you may be 
pleased to call — a single unhappy chance. We who are 
soaring so loftily in the morning, may, before noon, 
with ruffled crest and feebly beating wings, be driven 
helpless before the storm of an imexpected adversity. 

3 



RESERVE POWER 

How then can we best meet the emergencies which 
are sure to rise and be in readiness for the exigencies of 
the hour? 

* There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortime; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries." 

How can we take the tide at its flood and quickly 
grasp the fleeting opportimity? Now the men who 
are the "pillars of history" were not at the mercy of 
a single chance. They were fertile in resource and 
quick of execution; they were strong in the conscious- 
ness of a force behind, a power in reserve. The failure 
of one plan did not bring ruin and despair, but excited 
to new endeavor. As from the blackest soil grow the 
loveliest flowers, so the darkest adversity may call forth 
the grandest capabilities of a well-balanced nature. 
Milton lived in stormy times, but his poem is a note of 
triumph at the last. The good ship must be amply 
provided with means to brave all dangers, not only of 
the wind and waves, but of fire as well if she would 
cross the broad Atlantic and bear her cargo of precious 
human lives to the other side. We must liave a 
Biilcher in reserve if we would win a Waterloo. 

But, my friends, we need strength in reserve for a 
nobler purpose than the attainment of success for our- 
selves alone. We are part and parcel of the imiverse. 
**It takes five generations to make a gentleman," says 
Pepys, it has taken every generation since the world 

4 



•RESERVE POWER 

began to make us what we are. The nineteenth cen- 
tury is but the sum-total of all that have preceded, 
and we in our turn will swell the account of those that 
are to follow. Our lives are blended with every other 
life, and the blood of Adam is today coursing in our 
veins. 

A helpful influence never yet streamed from a grov- 
elling character. There can be no sunlight without 
the sun, no clear refreshing stream without a sparkling 
source. A good character, then, is the grandest 
power in reserve. It is the source, of which we spoke 
anon, from which the river flows; it is the sun from 
which the light shines. We must hoard up treasures 
of the heart as well as of the mind. Our storehouses 
must be filled not only with reason, with wit, with 
logic, with learning, desirable as these may be, but 
with love, with loyalty, with integrity as well, if we 
would live aright. 

Oh! the grand possiblities of a human life! A wise 
and frugal mind, rich in learning; fertile in resource; 
quick to execute; undaunted by difficulties, unshaken 
by defeat. A pure and noble character; resting on 
truth, strengthened by righteousness, upheld by God's 
almighty arm. Is this a mere ideal? But, my friends, 
we can all approach to it; there is no more required of 
any man than he can accomplish; and if we but live 
aright, if we improve our opportunities, if we nobly 
perform our daily duties, we shall be prepared for the 
world's difficulties; we shall be calm among life's dang- 

5 



RESERVE POWER 

ers and perils; serene in times of trouble and of trial; 
strong in the priceless possession of a strength behind, a 
power in reserve. 

To the casual observer, how much mightier is the 
howling storm, yet science teaches that the sun is the 
father of the hurricane. It would not brush the down 
from the cheek of the lowliest flower, yet each year, 
in defiance of the law of gravitation, it forces millions 
of gallons of sap into the tops of the tallest trees. It 
would not startle an infant's slumber, but it balances 
the worlds in the heavens, and the countless stars 
float in the blue expanse, upheld by its enormous 
power. There is a bridge over the Menai Straits, one 
of the largest in the world; trains, with hundreds of 
tons' weight, thimder over it each hour, and the great 
structure hardly quivers. The waters hurl themselves 
upon its massive piers, the winds rush against its 
mighty sides and the giant scarcely trembles; but the 
smiling sunbeams grasp the huge mass in its gentle 
fingers and with resistless strength stretch it more 
than three inches in a single day. 

The power of the sun is the grandest in nature. 
There is behind it a limitless and exhaustless reserve. 
Compared with it, that of the storm is as a ripple, 
a tiny ripple on the surface of the measureless deep. 

Now nature speaks with no meaningless voice. 
Through her the great Teacher gives us object lessons: 
" — the meanest flower that blows, can give. 

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

6 



RESERVE POWER 

What then is the lesson to be learned from the tran- 
sient storm and the ever enduring sunlight? It is one 
of deep moment to us who are upon the threshold of 
life. They both tell us, each in its own way; the 
storm from the lack, the sim from its abundance, that 
if we would have our lives earnest, our influence last- 
ing, we must be intellectually and morally thrifty, 
we must build characters rich in treasures of powers 
reserved. 



Historical Addresses 



A quaint Yankee said; ''The whole world is divided 
into two sections. One stirs around and does things, 
and father stands by and just naturally wants to know 
why in thunder they don't do 'em different.** — J. H. H, 



II 



OUR FIRST MINISTER TO FRANCE 

Response at Banquet of Sons of the American Revolution^ 
held at the Hollenden^ April jOy 1897. 

TF it had not been for the treaty of February 6, 1778, 

■*■ the crowning triumph of Yorktown would, perhaps, 

have been impossible, and for that treaty we are, above 

all, indebted to that quaint and wise philosopher, who 

wrote Poor Richard's Almanac, who invented the 

Franklin stove and of whom it has been well said, 

"Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis," 

— "He snatched the thunder-bolt from Heaven, 

and the Scepter from tyrants." 

When Franklin first landed in France, he was not 
America's sole representative. He was to be hind- 
ered by the injudicious, but well-meaning, Silas 
Deane, and thwarted and annoyed by the malignant, 
jealous and selfish Arthur Lee. Both Washington and 
Franklin had their Lees, and Charles at Monmouth 
was hardly more pestiferous than Arthur at Paris. 

Franklin's great reputation as a philosopher and 
statesman had preceded him. At once on his arrival, 
he became a social lion, though to an extent a political 
outcast. He was the idol of the French people, though 
at first something of a bugbear to the French court. 

11 



OUR FIRST MINISTER TO FRANCE 

Men of letters flocked to see him and paid homage to 
him. The women of France adored him. His shrewd 
sayings were in everyone's mouth, and his pictures 
hung in every drawing-room. Lord Stormont, the 
English ambassador, raged and stormed at his recep- 
tion v/ith true Anglican arrogance and took pains in 
every way to villify and belittle him. Franklin 
answered all his vituperation with a single mot, which 
at once made King George's plenipotentiary famous, 
and infamous. Somieone asked the doctor, at a 
public reception, if one of Lord Stormont's statements 
concerning him were true. *'No, sir," replied 
Franklin; "It is not a truth. It is a — Stormont." 
And, from that moment, not only throughout France, 
but tbj"oughout all Europe, a stormont became a 
simonym for a lie. 

Now, jealousy is a tribute which littleness pays to 
greatness; and Arthur Lee paid this tribute to Frank- 
lin in the fullest measure. He accused Deane of dis- 
honesty and Franklin of incompetency, and in every 
way sought to embarrass and checkmate him. But 
Franklin bore it all with imrulfled composure. He 
acted as a mediator between Deane and Lee. He met 
his petulance with patience and his insolence with a 
smile. He has left but one recorded complaint of his 
colleagues behind him, which reminds one of the 
growl of a lion when pestered by the buzzing of gnats. 
*Tt is hard," said he, in a letter written to a friend, 
"that I, who give others no trouble with my quarrels^ 

12 



OUR FIRST MINISTER TO FRANCE 

should be plagued with all the perversities of those who 
think fit to wrangle with one another." 

It w;as a critical period in American history, as Fiske 
tells us, and it needed the forbearing patience and 
shining genius and simple greatness and shrewd wis- 
dom of this matchless philosopher and statesman, not 
only to gain the confidence and, at last to obtain the 
assistance, of the French government but, to move 
away the obstacles which his colleagues were con- 
stantly placing in his path. 

While the three American envoys were in consulta- 
tion, just before the treaty was finally signed, a large 
cake was sent in by some imknown giver and pre- 
sented to Franklin. It had this inscription upon it, — 
"Le digne Franklin." Lee at once began to storm. 
He complained bitterly that, in everything, Franklin 
was put first, while he himself was either not con- 
sidered at all or was put last. Franklin smilingly re- 
plied that the cake was surely intended for all three, 
and that Lee, far from being forgotten by the giver, 
was first in his thoughts, while Franklin himself was 
last. **Our unknown friend sent the cake," said he 
quaintly, "to all three of us; but, the difficulty about 
the inscription is, that he did not know how to spell in 
English very well. The inscription plainly shows it 
was intended to be sent to Lee, Deane, Franklin." 

Shortly afterward Deane was recalled, you will re- 
member, not alone because of Lee's slanderous attacks 
on him; but, because he was constantly sending over 

13 



OUR FIRST MINISTER TO FRANCE 

to America, and recommending to the Continental 
Congress, all sorts of French adventurers, to whom 
he had promised positions of prominence and profit 
in the American service. Deane's recommendations 
are in marked contrast to those of Franklin. The 
doctor drew up a form of letter of recommendation 
which he almost invariably used, and which is so good 
a model of a letter of recommendation for the average 
hungry and clamorous office-seeker of the present 
day that I take the liberty of giving it to you in full. 
It was entitled: 

"Model of a letter of recommendation of a 
person you are imacquainted with." 

"Sir: The bearer of this, who is going to 
America, presses me to give him a letter of recom- 
mendation, though I know nothing of him — not 
even his name. This may seem extraordinary; 
but, I assure you it is not uncommon here. 
Sometimes, indeed, one unknown person brings 
another equally imknown to recommend him; 
and sometimes they recommend one another. 
As to this gentleman, I must refer you to himself 
for his character and merits, with which he is 
certainly better acquainted than I can possibly 
be. I recommend him, however, to those civili- 
ties which every stranger of whom one knows 
no harm has a right to; and I request you will do 
him all the good offices and show him all the 
favor that, on further acquaintance, you shall 

14 



OUR FIRST MINISTER TO FRANCE 

find him to deserve. I have the honor to be, 

etc." 

John Adams was sent out to take Deane's place. 
John Adams was, of course, a patriot and a good man; 
but he had developed, to a remarkable degree, a 
hypercritical faculty, which occasionally has appeared 
in some of his descendants. He criticised Franklin 
just as he criticised Washington. He complained of 
his lax business methods. He accused him of extrava- 
gance, and, failing to perceive how materially Frank- 
lin's social prestige aided him in his mission, asserted 
that he gave too much time to trifling matters, to the 
neglect of his public business. Adams, nevertheless, 
had the good sense to insist that three envoys were 
unnecessary, that it was important for Congress to 
make but one man minister to France. Good Mrs. 
Adams also dipped her pen in vitriol and complained 
in her correspondence of some of the doctor's female 
intimates. 

There is extant a letter, which Mrs. Adams, wrote 
concerning Madam Helvetius, whom, it is reported, 
Franklin would have been glad to have married, if the 
vivacious widow had consented; which is so amusing 
and throws such a strong light on the times that, if you 
will bear with me, I will read it to you, or rather a por- 
tion of it. I am obliged to give you an expurgated 
edition of the letter, for Mrs. Adams had no hesitation 
in calling a spade a spade. If any of the Dc-ajhters of 
the American Revolution here present, however desire 

15 



OUR FIRST MINISTER TO FRANCE 

to read it in its entirety, if they will come to me after 
the banquet is over, I shall be glad to tell them where 
they can find it. It seems that Mrs. Adams had gone 
with her husband to dine one Sunday evening with 
Doctor Franklin. The doctor was detained for some 
reason, and while the guests were waiting for him, 
Madam Helvetius suddenly appeared, and is thus 
described by Mrs. Adams: 

"She entered the room with a careless, jaunty 
air. Upon seeing ladies who were strangers to 
her, she bawled out: 'Ah, mon Dieu; where is 
Franklin? Why did you not tell me there were 
ladies here? How I look;' she said, taking hold 
of a chemise made of tiffany, which she had on 
over a blue lute-string and which looked as much 
upon the decay as her beauty, for she was once 
a handsome woman. Her hair was frizzled, 
over it she had a small straw hat, with a dirty 
gauze half-handkerchief round it, and a bit of 
dirtier gauze scarf thrown over her shoulders. 
She ran out of the room. When she returned, the 
doctor entered at one door, she at the other, upon 
which she ran forward to him, caught him by the 
hand. **Helas Franklin!" Then gave him a 
double kiss, one upon each cheek and another 
upon his forehead. When we went into the room 
to dine, she was placed between the doctor and 
Mr. Adams. She carried on the chief of the con- 
versation at dinner, frequently locking her hand 

16 



OUR FIRST MINISTER TO FRANCE 

into the doctor's and sometimes spreading her 
arms upon the backs of both gentlemen's chairs; 
then throwing her arm carelessly upon the doc- 
tor's neck. ... I own I was highly disgusted, and 
never wish for an acquaintance with any ladies 
of this cast. After dinner, she threw herself upon 
a settee, where she showed more than her feet. 
She had a little lap-dog, who was, next to the 
doctor, her favorite. This she kissed. . . . This is 
one of the doctor's most intimate friends, with 
whom he dines once every week, and she with 
him." 

I w^onder if Mrs. Adams' criticism of the erratic, 
but brilliant Madam Helvetius, was embittered any 
by the fact that the fascinating widow sometimes care- 
lessly threw her arm over the back of Mr. Adams' 
chair. 

In February, 1779, Lafayette brought over and de- 
livered to Franklin his commission as sole minister to 
the French court. Time forbids that I should recount 
further the essential labors rendered to his country and 
to the world by this representative American. Old 
and feeble in health, but with undimmed intellect, he 
labored incessantly for the cause he loved. He fitted 
out cruisers and privateers to prey upon the English 
commerce. He assisted John Paul Jones and made 
his daring exploits possible. He borrowed money for 
the Continental Congress, and, with an unequalled 
diplomacy, maintained friendly relations between the 

17 



OUR FIRST MINISTER TO FRANCE 

two governments; and, finally, with the aid of Adams 
and Jay, he negotiated, with the representatives of 
Great Britain, the treaty of peace, the preliminary 
articles of which were signed on November 30, 1782, 
and which forever established the independence of the 
thirteen United States of America. 

Of course, the treaty was severely criticised, and, 
during the progress of the negotiations, Franklin 
wrote to Laurens, — 

"I have never yet known of a peace made 
that did not create a great deal of popular dis- 
content, clamor and censure on both sides; so 
that the blessing promised the peacemakers, I 
fancy, relates to the next world, for in this they 
seem to have a greater chance of being cursed." 
Finally, after repeated applications to Congress, his 
resignation of his great office was accepted, and ful 
of years and honors, but, at the same time, full of 
infirmities, he returned to his home in 1785. He was 
elected President of Pennsylvania and also, a member 
of the Constitutional Convention, so that, if, for any 
reason, General Washington might be imable to pre- 
side over that body, there might be someone there 
whom all men would be willing to select as chairman; 
and, finally, in April 17, 1790, this great patriot and 
unequalled statesman died. Shortly before his death, 
he said, — 

"I often hear persons, whom I knew when 
children, called old Mr. Such a one, to distinguish 

18 



OUR FIRST MINISTER TO FRANCE 

them from their sons, now men grown and in 
business; so that, by living twelve years beyond 
David's period, I seem to have intruded myself 
into the company of posterity, when I ought to 
have been abed and asleep." 
One cannot help but be reminded of the prophetic 
epitaph, which Franklin himself wrote, to be inscribed 
upon his own tomb-stone — although it was never put 
there — and, as one remembers the venerable figure of 
the patriot, the sage, the statesman, the simple and 
yet the profound American, who was our first minister 
to France, one cannot help fancying, that Franklin's 
prophecy has been to an extent fulfilled. Let me give 
you the epitaph: 

The body of 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

(Like the cover of an old book, 

its contents torn out, 

and stript of its lettering and gilding,) 

lies here, food for worms. 

Yet the work itself shall not be lost; 

for it will, as he believed, appear once more, 

in a new 

and more beautiful edition, 

corrected and amended 

by 

the Author. 



19 



Ill 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

y/« address delivered on Columbus Day 
Oct. 2 1 St, i8g2. 

/CHRISTOPHER Columbus stood, four hundred 
^^ years ago last August, on the sacred shore of Spain, 
before he embarked on the good ship "Santa Maria." 
He could have had no notion of the stupendous conse- 
quences which would result from his daring voyage to 
"the undiscovered country.'* Great as was his spirit 
and dauntless as was his courage, with his education 
and with his environments, he must have hesitated 
could he have known all. Certainly Isabella would 
never have sold her historic jewels, and Ferdinand 
would never have permitted the three vessels to slip 
their cables, and the priest would have withheld his 
parting blessing, if the future had been revealed. 
Columbus was going, as the representative of sov- 
ereigns, ruling, as they thought, by Divine right, to 
discover a country where the people alone should be 
king and all men were to be equal before the law. As 
the agent of a despotism, he was but the herald of free- 
dom; as the servant of a monarchy, he was but the 
forerunner of a republic, or, rather, of republics, the 
example of which would make every throne in Europe 

21 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

tremble. With the sanction of a Church, to which the 
State was united by strongest bonds, he was going on a 
mission, one of the results of which would be to for- 
ever sever those bonds. 

It was a hard task he had determined to accomplish, 
to sail across the apparently boundless and unknown 
seas, over which no vessel, so far as he knew, had ever 
gone, in search of a country which no inhabitant of 
his world had ever visited, and to do all this in spite of 
tremendous obstacles and bitter opposition and ad- 
verse criticism was, indeed, a hard task. But he did 
all that lay in his power to prepare for its successful 
accomplishment. His boldness was, after all, not the 
boldness of recklessness; but of knowledge. His cour- 
age was the courage of intelligent conviction and not of 
ignorance. His success was the result of preparation 
and not of blind, unaided chance. He was a skilled, 
practical mariner and had possessed himself of all the 
nautical information of his day. His scientific knowl- 
edge, limited as it was, nevertheless, was in advance 
of his time and sufificient to enable him to confute the 
savants of Spain. They had the incredulity of ignor- 
ance and he possessed the certainty of knowledge. 
Great achievements are not accidental. Success is 
the reward of effort and not of sloth. He who would 
succeed like Columbus must labor like him. 

There is yet another thing which this suggests, and 
it is this — though America was discovered four 
himdred years ago; though white sails dot every sea 

22 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

and connect us with every clime, the world still has 
need of men like Columbus; there are undiscovered 
coimtries yet around us, and he who first puts his foot 
upon them and opens them to the enjoyment and 
occupation of his fellows will deserve well of the race. 
It is still true that "There are more things in Heaven 
and Earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy." 
The day of discovery is not yet past; the wide oceans 
of science, of literature, indeed of all knowledge, are 
not yet crossed, nor have their hither shores been 
reached. The steam engine, the electric telegraph, 
the telephone, the electric light; all of which have 
been given to the world within the recollection of liv- 
ing men, are but islands in the mighty deep. Great 
continents lie still beyond. There is yet opportunity 
for him who will, to earn the lasting gratitude of man- 
kind. 

I am reminded of a beautiful legend, which seems to 
me appropriate here, because it is called the Legend 
of Saint Christopher. The subject of the legend was 
a man of great strength and mighty stature, and, 
wishing to use his strength for the service of his fel- 
lows, he made it a practice to carry on his shoulders 
those who desired to cross a swiftly rushing stream- 
He was ignorant and imcouth, but sought in this 
humble way to work for others. One evening, when 
the river was swollen with the Spring floods, a child 
came down to his hut and asked to be carried over. 
He was wearied with his day's work; but, true to his 

23 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

determination to render all the help he could to others, 
he took the child upon his shoulders and began the 
crossing of the stream. Soon the water came up 
about his breast and the child grew somehow strangely 
heavy; but still he struggled on. At last his burden, 
in some strange way, got to be almost more than 
he could bear, and the waters dashed up in his face 
and choked him; and, then, as the old legend has it, 
he was tempted to throw off the child and save him- 
self; but he resisted the temptation and, true to his 
resolve to spend himself for others, labored on and, 
just as his strength was almost gone and the burden 
had become almost heavier than he could bear, sud- 
denly new strength was given him and he landed 
safely on the other side, and, when he had lifted the 
child, as he supposed, from his shoulders, he found 
standing before him — 

"The vision of our Lord 

With hght Elysian, 
Like a vesture wrapped about him, 
Like a garment 'round him thrown." 
and he kneeled before the vision; but the vision said, 
'* Arise. Henceforward, thou shalt be called Christo- 
pher, the Christ-bearer, because great is his reward 
who labors for others." 



24 



IV 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Address delivered at Republican Club Dinner, 
Newark^ N. J., February 12, i8g8, 

THOSE who have made the most profound and last- 
ing impressions upon the race have not only done 
much; they have also suffered much. Such entirely 
great ones have captured not alone the admiration, 
but have aroused the sympathy of the world. They 
have won both the cheers and the tears of all Human- 
ity. On the shining and enduring tablet which Fame 
has set up in her temple in honor of the Immortals, 
their names appear at the very top, cut deeply there by 
the keen chisel of self-sacrifice. To such an one belongs 
the distinctive glory of being "without a country," — 
not that he was faithless to, or did not passionately 
love, his own; but, because he did so much and en- 
dured so much for all men that the whole world claims 
him. For illustration of tliis truth, the most illus- 
trious, we may reverently point even to the Christ 
Himself. Hundreds of years after the awful tragedy 
of Calvary was finished, men and women gladly shed 
their heart's blood for His sake. And why? Was it 
because of his rule the golden? Because of his match- 
less and primordial sermon on the moimt? Because 

25 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

he spake as never man spake, and there was healing in 
his touch? Yes, it was because of these and all of 
these; but, chiefly and above all, because of the nail- 
prints in his feet and hands and of the spear-thrust in 
his side. The weeping Christ in the Garden of 
Gethsemane; the tortured, broken Christ upon the 
cross, has been more prevailing in influence than the 
indignant Christ with the scourge in his hand driving 
out the money changers from the temple or even than 
the wonder working Christ stilling the waters of the 
Sea of Gallilee or calling Lazarus from the tomb. 
Without the crowning and awful spectacle of the 
Crucifix, the great drama of the Atonement would 
have been incomplete. 

Now, in faint, but after all, very real analogy, 
Abraham Lincoln is reverenced and counted as chief 
among the earth's foremost; not only because he was 
the great War President; but, also, because he fell, a 
martyr to the cause for which he labored. His assas- 
sin, indeed, snatched from him, in the very hour of 
triumph, a few mortal years; but, in his own despite, 
he gave to his illustrious victim, a greater triumph and 
the fulness of time instead. 

When Lincoln was stricken down, the heart of all 
Humanity was woimded and bled. As quickly as the 
hateful, but immortalizing bullet reached its shining 
mark, so quickly did the great cause of human freedom 
become, on that eventful evening at Ford's Opera 
House, somehow holier and more inspiring, because it 

26 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

was then and there forever sanctified by the blood of 
the first of Americans. He was the above all con- 
spicuous leader of one side in the bitterest and fiercest 
civil strife the world has ever witnessed. It was a 
strife which not only divided sections, but families; 
for fathers fought on one side and sons on the other, 
and brothers met brothers in the shock of battle. 

Mr. Lincoln was the representative of every princi- 
ple the North strove for, far more than Mr. Davis was 
the representative of what the South strove for; since 
the first towered above all his contemporaries, while 
many of the latter's contemporaries towered above 
him. Mr. Lincoln always forgot himself and re- 
membered only his cause; Mr. Davis always remem- 
bered himself and sometimes forgot his cause. The 
one could not have been greatly belittled, even by 
defeat, and the other could not have been greatly 
exalted, even by victory. 

On the patient shoulders of Mr. Lincoln rested the 
mighty burden of a nation's fate. The freedom or 
thralldom of a race depended upon him. He was the 
masterful, ruling spirit; calm, magnanimous, gentle, 
but persistent and inexorable. He more than any 
other bore the strain of the conflict, for upon him 
more than upon any other rested the success or failure 
of the outcome. He wielded a more than despotic 
power. His simple word meant life or death to 
thousands. He had the ablest of assistants, but he 
dominated them all and controlled them all. Grant 

27 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

was indeed the flaming sword, but Lincoln the arm 
that wielded it; Sherman the loaded cannon, but Lin- 
coln the match that fired it; Sheridan the thunder- 
bolt, but Lincoln the Jove who hurled it. With him 
to counsel and support, they performed wonders; but 
without his patient and sublime courage and unfalter- 
ing loyalty and simple trust, who can even conjecture 
what the result might have been. 

So, upon him was visited the deepest wrath of the 
foes of the Republic. His was the name of all most 
execrated and scorned. He was the object of abuse 
without a parallel, of hatred the most venomous. And, 
when, owing to his great leadership, the cause he 
championed at last triumphed, the anguish of defeat 
made the revengeful hatred of the vanquished even 
more bitter. Mourning households blamed him for 
the loss of dear ones. Those, who had lived in afflu- 
ence and were then pinched by poverty, laid their 
griping losses at his door. There was treachery also, 
even in the North, and those on whom he leaned 
betrayed him or were jealous of him, and so hated him. 

However, when, at last, this feeling of bitterness 
stirred the brain and nerved the arm of a half-crazed 
fanatic, so that he struck the simple hero down, then 
eyes, which had been dimmed before with passion, 
were washed clear by tears; then men on both sides 
saw with distinctness the towering mountain with the 
eternal sunshine bathing its majestic summit; and, 
when, at last, his hallov/ed dust was laid to rest in the 

28 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tomb, which it for all time will render sacred, then it 
was that all remembered his greatness, his magnanim- 
ity, his gentleness and his grandeur; then it was that 
all missed his firm and steady grasp upon the helm of 
the battered Ship of State; and from then his name 
became, and forever after will remain, an inspiration 
to all who put country before self and honor before 
ambition. 

Tonight, though many are still living who bore arms 
against the cause he died for, there is no one in the 
world too great to do his memory reverence and none 
who have any word to say of him except in solemn 
praise. Only a fevv^ short years ago this man had mil- 
lions of enemies; but, now, such of them as are living 
have all become his friends, and the v/hole world 
mourns for him and reveres his memory. If the un- 
devout astronomer is mad, surely the undevout stu- 
dent of the life and labors of Abraham Lincoln is mad 
also. God made him what he was, to do the work he 
did, and permitted him to be taken at a time and in a 
way to make that work the most impressive and far- 
reaching in its results. But this thought does not in 
any manner lessen or excuse the hideous crime of the 
assassin, for — 

*lt must needs be that offences come; but 
woe to him by v/hom the offence cometh." 

Mr. Lincoln was not only a genius, but a paradox. 
With no experience of ships, save only that he sailed a 
flat-boat on the Mississippi River, he was the success- 

29 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

fill captain of the largest and most formidable navy 
of his time. With no military training, save that 
which he obtained when he was for a short time in the 
Black Hawk War, he commanded more than a million 
of men, and said Yes and Go, when trained soldiers 
said No and Stay. And events proved that the back- 
woodsman was usually right and the educated West 
Pointers often wrong. Self-educated, having spent 
only a few weeks at a frontier school, he was the great- 
est master of English since Shakespeare and the pro- 
foundest and broadest thinker of his time. And how 
can anyone doubt that the Bard of Avon wrote his 
plays, when Lincoln, the untrained child of nature, 
was the author of the immortal oration delivered on 
the Battlefield of Gettysburg and of that other living, 
breathing masterpiece, the second inaugural? 

Within three months from the time of his inaugura- 
tion, we find this country lawyer, this self-taught 
scholar, with discriminating and apt pencil, correcting 
the carefully elaborated letter of instructions which 
the accomplished Seward, his great Secretary of State, 
had prepared for Mr. Adams, our Minister to the un- 
friendly court of St. James. With but scant oppor- 
timities for legal study, he became a greater consti- 
tutional lawyer than even Webster. Bom amid the 
poorest and lowliest surroundings, he moved with 
dignity in drawing rooms and commanded the respect 
of trained ambassadors. He exemplified, more than 

30 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

any man who ever lived, those philosophic lines of 
Coleridge: 

"Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends. 
Hath he not always treasures, always friends, 
The good, great man? Three treasures, — 

love and light. 
And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath; 
And three firm friends more sure than day and night, — 
Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death." 
Lincoln's moral and intellectual ascendancy over 
others was nowhere more strikingly shown than at his 
reception of the members of the Peace Convention in 
the parlor of Willard's Hotel on the evening of the day 
before his inauguration. The story of this thrilling 
incident is graphically told by Mr. Chittenden in his 
admirable book entitled Recollections of President 
Lincoln and His Administration — a book which no 
true American can afford to leave unstudied. 

Mr. Lincoln had been in Washington only a few 
hours. He was wearied by his long and eventful 
journey. He had just escaped what was believed by 
his friends to have been a plot to assassinate him in 
Baltimore. He had been receiving visitors all day, 
and the importunity of office seekers had been con- 
stant and irksome. About nine o'clock in the evening 
the members of the Peace Convention, nearly all of 
whom were distinguished men and a majority of whom 
were his political opponents and a large minority of 
whom were his relentless enemies, crowded into the 

31 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

parlor of Willard's Hotel. Mr. Lincoln had been 
called by many of those who came **the rail-splitter/' 
"an ignoramus," **the baboon/* "a vulgar clown" and 
other opprobrious names. Those who attended the 
reception came, in large measure, for the purpose of 
confoimding him and not for the purpose of pa^dng 
their respects to him; but such as "came to scoff 
remained to pray." 

Mr. Lincoln received them all with an unstudied 
grace and warm cordiality. He had for each one 
some appropriate remark. Soon they began plying 
him with questions as to what his course would be, and 
he planted himself upon the Constitution. Finally, 
they clustered around him and listened with breath- 
less interest to the magnetic, loyal, patriotic words 
which fell from his lips. It remained for William E. 
Dodge of New York — and it is strange how many 
good men went wrong in those troublesome times — 
to bring about the most exciting episode of the even- 
ing. Mr. Dodge said — and I now quote from Mr. 
Chittenden's accoimt — 

"It is for you, sir, to say whether the whole nation shall be 
pliinged into bankruptcy; whether the grass shall grow in the 
streets of our commercial cities." "Then I say it shall not," 
he answered with a merry twinkle in his eye. "If it depends 
upon me, the grass will not grow anywhere, except in the fields 
and the meadows." "Then you will yield to the just demands 
of the South," continued Mr. Dodge, "you will leave her to 
control her own institutions. You will admit slave states into 
the Union on the same condition as free states. You will not 
go to war on account of slavery." 

32 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

A sad, but stern, expression swept over Mr. Lincoln's face. "I 
do not know that I understand your meaning, Mr. Dodge," he 
said without raising his voice, "nor do I know what my acts or 
my opinions may be in the future, beyond this. If I shall ever 
come to the great office of President of the United States, I shall 
take an oath. I shall swear that I will faithfully execute the 
office of President of the United States — of all the United States, 
and that I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and 
defend the Constitution of the United States. This is a great 
and solemn duty. With the support of the people and the as- 
sistance of the Almighty, I shall undertake to perform it. I have 
full faith that I shall perform it. It is not the Constitution as I 
would like to have it, or as you might like to have it; but, as it 
is, that is to be defended. The Constitution will not be pre- 
served and defended until it is enforced and obeyed in every part 
of every one of the United States. It must be so respected, 
obeyed, enforced and defended, let the grass grow where it may." 

A great hush fell on the assembly. Those who 
were still loyal, but disheartened, felt the power of the 
man who was to take up the reins of government, 
which had been so feebly held by the vacillating 
Buchanan. Those who were traitors at heart were 
troubled and slunk away. 

Mr. Lincoln was something more than merely great, 
he v/as the most lovable of all men and the most mag- 
netic of all men. Truth beautified every wrinkle on 
his rugged face. His voice was clear and expressive; 
his smile winning. He was possessed of a tender pity, 
of a gentle charity. Those frequent spectacles of the 
great president dropping the engrossing duties of his 
office in order to investigate and find a reason for 
pardoning some poor soldier or for relieving the dis- 

33 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tresses of some anxious wife or mother were more 
potent in their influence than m.any a victorious battle- 
field. And then, he was possessed of such a delight- 
ful humor, balmy as the wind from the pine forests 
and limpid as the spring from the mountain side. 

"I hope you will excuse me," said he to a newspaper 
man, who had entered his room at a hotel somewhat 
unexpectedly and found him with his boots off, "but 
I like to give my feet a chance to breathe now and 
then." 

*Tray, tell me," said he to those who demanded 
that he should remove the first soldier of the Republic 
on the score of intemperance, "Where Grant gets his 
w^hiskey. I should like to send a barrel to every 
general at the front." 

In speaking once of a very vain and pompous mili- 
tary officer, who had lately died and to whom his 
friends had given an imposing funeral, he said, "If 

General had known what a fine fimeral he 

was to have, he would have died years ago." 

"Mr. Lincoln," said Mr. Ganson, a Democratic 
Congressman from Buffalo, who had called at the 
White House with some of his supporters, "I have 
voted for all your war measures in Congress; but we 
have been voting in the dark. I have a right to know, 
and I demand to know, what your plans are, sir; and 
what are the prospects and conditions of the several 
campaigns and armies." 

Mr. Ganson was perfectly bald and cleanly shaven. 

34 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The great commoner looked at him for a moment, 
then replied, "Ganson, how close you shave" and the 
incident ended with a laugh. 

**I do not know much about the theory of political 
economy," said this quaint philosopher, simiming up 
the entire protection argimient in a single sentence: 
"but, if I buy a ton of English rails, America gets the 
rails and England gets the money; while, if I buy a ton 
of American rails, America gets the rails and the 
money too. Both rails and money I understand to be 
good things. Why not let America have them both?" 

What are the lessons to be learned from the life and 
character of this nature's nobleman, whose name is 
written in letters of fire on the vaulted heavens and 
whom his countrymen love as passionately as they 
love the starry flag which he so bravely held aloft. In 
the short limits of a speech like this, I can only allude 
to three of them: 

We should catch from him the inspiration of a loftier 
courage; of a surer faith. It cannot be that Providence 
should have permitted him to have lived, and toiled, 
and sorrowed, and been sacrificed in vain. 

When threatening clouds loom up in the horizon, 
let us not despair, as he did not. None of us will ever 
see darker hours than those after the defeat at Bull 
Rim, or after Lee had invaded Pennsylvania. Surely, 
the great arch of the Union of States, which he strength- 
ened and preserved, will never be permitted to 
crumble. 

35 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Then, let us also learn from him the lesson of self- 
sacrifice. Let us have for our chiefest, loftiest aim, 
the country *s welfare; not our own; and, above all, 
let us be patient amid difficulties, and charitable in our 
judgments, doing as he did, every nearest duty with 
our best endeavor. Thus, and thus only, can we do 
our part toward solving the problems which confront 
the Republic, for which he so grandly lived and so 
heroically died. 

The memory of Lincoln is a vigorous plant. Its 
roots are planted in the rich and fertile soil of a na- 
tion's sorrowful love; of a people's worshipful rever- 
ence. It has been watered by the tears of millions, its 
leaves will forever be kept green. He is enshrined in 
the hearts of his coimtrymen. All true Am.ericans 
will always cherish for this masterful but gentle leader, 
for this sublime, but simple great one, a love that 
never shall die: 

"Till the sun grows cold, 

And the stars are old. 
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold." 



36 



WASHINGTON, LINCOLN AND GRANT 

Address at Anniversary Celebration of Valley Forge Day by the 

Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution atHollenden 

Hotel, Cleveland, Wednesday, December ig, 1904; 

Also in substance, as Response to Toast at 

Middlesex Club, Boston, April 27, i8g6. 

T has been fortunate for America that the three men 
who have rendered her the most signal service, pos- 
sessed each that chiefest and best attribute of true 
greatness — a patient spirit. Famous as they are for 
what they did, they are no less renowned for what they 
uncom.plainingly endured. 

There was Grant, the Protector of the Republic. 
He possessed this sublime quality of patience. After 
the fall of Donelson, he was not only obliged to fight 
the enemy in his front; but the narrow-minded jeal- 
ousy of competitors in the rear. His calmness and 
confidence amid the confusion of the first day's dis- 
asters at Pittsburg Landing — a calmness which came 
from his larger knowledge and wider vision was called 
by those envious of him the stupidity and stolidity of 
drunkenness. Vicksburg was protected not only by 
the fortifications erected by the Confederates; the city 
was guarded no less securely by obstacles set up in 
Grant's way by Federal hands; and the indomitable 

37 



WASHINGTON, LINCOLN AND GRANT 

general was obliged to surmount or remove the latter 
before he could reduce and take the former. 

Imperturable amidst a storm of the cruelest criti- 
cism, he steadily fought the dreadful, but essential. 
Campaign of the Wilderness to its bloody end, and as 
a result, months afterward, snatched the sword of 
rebellion from the strong hand of Lee at Appomattox, 
and forever established the supremacy of the Union of 
States. It was then that Grant, who had been called 
the ''drunkard" and the ''butcher" was at length rec- 
ognized as the greatest of modem soldiers. 

Great as he was in the conflict, he was greater far in 
the hour of final triumph. He captured the Confed- 
erates by force of arms, but he recaptured them by the 
wise generosity with which he treated them. It was 
because of the liberal terms which he offered that not 
only the Union of States was preserved; but, years 
afterward, a union of hearts, has become possible. 
Persistent, inexorable, indomitable in war, he was 
generously and sagaciously forbearing in the hour of 
victory. 

The greatness of a character must be tested not only 
by adversity, but by success. No one of his mighty 
triumphs on the battlefield was his chiefest victory. 
The majesty of his character was made clear by the 
light of his final triumph; won years afterward; when, 
broken in health and bankrupt in fortune, he sat upon 

38 



WASHINGTON, LINCOLN AND GRANT 

the porch of the cottage on Mount McGregor (a shel- 
ter furnished him by the charity of a friend), and with 
a shawl around his shoulders lest even the summer 
breeze should strike the great warrior too fierce a blow; ^ 

and with a pencil in his weakening hand, and a writing 
pad upon his trembling knee, he wrote his grand and 
simple story of the great struggle. 

The making of such a book would have been a stu- 
pendous task, even under circumstances the most 
favorable. It required information the widest and 
most accurate and mental concentration the most in- 
tense. An ordinary man would have shrunk from the 
mere labor of it. Even an extraordinary man would 
have dropped the pencil, if he had been suffering from 
a headache or a chill. But, Grant, the magnificent, 
while Death stared into his eyes and so closely clutched 
him by the throat that every breath he drew was an 
agony; Grant, dumb with disease and pain, wrote the 
great book, clear and beautiful in style, accurate in 
detail, broad in plan, not for fame; but, that his wife 
and family might not be left penniless; and, with the 
word 'Tinis," he died. 

There has been no liner spectacle of self-sacrifice, 
of patient courage, and of indomitable will, since * 'Cal- 
vary." A mountain never looks so large as when the 
sun sets behind it, and the gloom of the evening en- 
shrouds it. It was during his last sickness that the 

39 



# 



WASHINGTON, LINCOLN AND GRANT 

character of this immortal American stood out in most 
imposing outline. ''Mightier is he that ruleth his 
spirit than he that taketh a city.'* 

Then there was Lincoln, the Saviour of the Republic. 
What needless, and yet crushing, burdens he was com- 
pelled to stagger under. No wonder, as his biogra- 
phers tell us, that his face, when in repose, was the 
saddest ever seen. When he sagaciously delayed ac- 
tion until he felt sure of the support of a slowly devel- 
oped public opinion, he was accused of cowardice and 
weakness; but, when he finally acted, he was often 
blamed for haste. There was no defeat for which he 
was not held responsible. There was hardly a victory 
in the triiimph of which he was permitted by his 
traducers to share. There was disloyalty even in his 
cabinet, and, before his first administration was half 
over, one of his leading secretaries intrigued to succeed 
him. Many whom he exalted betrayed him. Those 
on whom he leaned failed him. Those who should 
have shielded him from every attack thrust at him 
the most viciously. Their daggers, too, were poisoned 
with the venom of ingratitude. The fatal effect of 
those wounds was only anticipated by the bullet of the 
assassin. In one respect that bullet did a kindlier 
work — the agony it caused was less prolonged. 

How calmly and patiently he fulfilled his mighty 
destiny. His character takes on only added glories, 
when contrasted with the littleness of those aroimd 

40 



WASHINGTON, LINCOLN AND GRANT 

him. His great soul harbored no anger or resentment. 
He knew no such feeling as revenge. A burst of petu- 
lance, an angry recrimination, and the story of Free- 
dom's triumph might, perhaps, have become one of 
defeat and despair. Lincoln's wisdom was as unerring 
as instinct. Like Charles I, he never ''said a foolish 
thing;" but, imlike him, he never did an unwise one. 
If we could, I doubt if we would wish to change any- 
thing he ever said or wrote or did. With unexampled 
magnanimity, he appointed Chase, Chief Justice. It 
is because of the calm forbearance of his reply to the 
petulant reproaches of Greeley, that his argument is 
so imanswerable. 

"He lived with malice toward none, and with charity 
for all." And what wonder is it that now his memory 
is reverenced in worshipful adoration, not only by his 
own countrymen, but by the whole world. His grand 
and benignant character looms up in the history of 
those eventful years like the tall cliff Goldsmith 
sings of: 

that lifts its awful form, 

Swells from the vale and midway leaves the 
storm. 

Though, 'round its breast the rolling clouds be 
spread, 

Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

Then there was Washington, the first of the great 
triumvirate, the father of the republic. No one ever 

41 



WASHINGTON, LINCOLN AND GRANT 

bore himself amid exasperating perplexities and tow- 
ering difficulties with a grander patience than he. He 
did, indeed, break out into fierce denunciations, on the 
field of Monmouth, at the cowardice and treachery of 
the despicable Charles Lee. He even emphasized his 
stem rebuke with a tremendous oath. But the marvel 
is — for Washington must have been himian, after all — 
that he did not swear hundreds of times before and 
after that memorable crisis, when, by the sheer force 
of his majestic and inspiring presence, he rallied the 
flying Continentals, changed the weakness of their 
despair into the irresistible might of courage and the 
darkness and horror of defeat into the light and glory 
of victory. Had he been irascible and profane even 
as the gallant Baron Steuben, the world must have 
made loving allowance. 

But Washington requires no apologist. Generous 
in giving charity to others, he needed none for him- 
self. It is because of the unequalled calmness and 
dignity of his exalted spirit that he occupies in history 
a solitude as unique as it is noble, and that men even 
now cherish his memory with a solemn reverence and 
never mention his name without a feeling of awe. 

A moimtain never looks so large as when the sun 
sets behind it, and the gloom of evening enshrouds it. 
In the dark days at Valley Forge, the character of the 
great American stands out in the most imposing out- 
line. With about eleven thousand raw and ragged 
soldiers, poorly equipped and armed, weakened by 

42 



WASHINGTON, LINCOLN AND GRANT 

hunger and exposure, he had hurled himself against 
the veteran army of Howe, consisting of about eigh- 
teen thousand splendidly trained and equipped men. 
Washington had been defeated at Brandywine and 
again at Germantown — although, in both of these en- 
gagements, he had inflicted considerable loss upon his 
superior enemy. 

In all the pomp of war, with banners flying and 
bands playing, Howe had victoriously marched into 
Philadelphia, the capital of the Continentals. Con- 
gress, bitterly complaining of the Commander-in- 
Chief, had fled in fear and despair to York. Those 
who had hitherto been Washington's staimchest sup- 
porters now wavered in their allegiance to him. 

Samuel Adams, that most conspicuous of patriots, 
spoke with impatience of his so-called * 'Fabian policy." 
John Adams declared himself in favor of a "short and 
violent war." He complained of the regard which the 
people felt for the great soldier as an ''idolatry, danger- 
ous to American liberty." Congress was jealous of 
the army and had resisted Washington's efforts to 
strengthen and improve it, on the ground that it was a 
menace to the liberty of the people. It was even 
hinted that Washington had ideas of a dictatorship. 

No imiform terms of enlistment were permitted, 
and just when the men had become trained by expe- 
rience and were most needed, they left the service. 
Notwithstanding the deplorable condition of the 

43 



WASHINGTON, LINCOLN AND GRANT 

troops, Washington was bitterly blamed for not con- 
tinuing the disastrous campaign. 

To add to the horrors of the situation, though the 
soldiers suffered miseries which have made them the 
objects not only of the pity but of the admiration of 
the world, those miseries were caused rather by in- 
ccmipetence and incapacity than by necessity. 

As the troops m^arched into winter quarters at 
Valley Forge, shivering as the cold blasts of winter 
struck their nakedness, and leaving bloody footprints 
in the snow behind them, hogsheads of shoes and tons 
of clothing were rotting in the woods a few miles 
away, unavailable because no teams had been pro- 
vided for their transportation. 

Gates, wearing the laurels which were really won by 
Schuyler, Morgan and Arnold at Saratoga, was in- 
triguing to supplant the Commander-in-Chief. The 
members of the Conway Cabal, attempting to under- 
mine his influence, were sending to Congress, and pub- 
lishing in the public prints, annonymous slanders. 
The Board of War had been reorganized, and Wash- 
ington's bitterest enemies composed it. 

On the memorable nineteenth of December when he 
established winter quarters at Valley Forge, he was 
surely confronted with difficulties which must have 
seemed well nigh insurmountable. On the twenty- 
second of December, in a report which he made to 

44 



WASHINGTON, LINCOLN AND GRANT 

Congress he stated that more than a third of his little 
army was incapacitated for service owing to sickness 
resulting from hunger and exposure. Some weeks 
later, not more than two thousand men were able to 
perform their duties. There has been no darker period 
in American history. 

Though the sky had been brightened by the victory 
at Saratoga, in October the gloom had settled down 
again. The sim of Liberty seemed not to have been 
eclipsed merely, but to have sunk forever below the 
horizon. Just then, when the darkness was most 
appalling, the character of Washington shone out in 
most majestic splendor; when the hearts of all other 
patriots were filled with despair, his alone quailed not. 
His example so inspired the troops that they endured 
their sufferings with a heroism which has been the 
wonder of the world. He reorganized the commis- 
sariat; with the valuable aid of Steuben, the soldiers 
were drilled during the memorable winter. He 
turned a mob into an army. The attempts of his 
enemies to weaken his influence reacted against them- 
selves. He brought order out of chaos, discipline out 
of demoralization. He turned fear into courage, 
weakness into strength. As one considers his calm 
courage, his supreme exertion, he really seems some- 
thing more than a man. He quieted the stormy 
waves which threatened to engulf the infant republic 

45 



WASHINGTON, LINCOLN AND GRANT 

with a faint approach toward that divine power with 
which Christ stilled the troubled waters of the Sea of 
Gallilee. 

Washington founded the government, Lincoln saved 
it, Grant protected it. 



46 



VI 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

Address delivered at the laying of the Corner-Stone 

of the McKinley Memorial at Niles, Ohio, 

Saturday, November 20, 1915. 

WILLIAM McKinley, of fragrant and blessed 
memory, to commemorate whose conspicuous 
public service and unblemished private life, this Me- 
morial will be erected, was in all respects worthy of such 
lasting tribute. No pennanent reminder of his high 
patriotism, his great achievements, and of his noble 
and unique character, can be made too beautiful or 
imposing. 

The constant recollection of what he did, and what 
he was (which this Memorial, when built, will help to 
perpetuate and vitalize), must awaken, not only pride 
that he was a fellow-countryman of ours, but must 
also inspire us to a more devoted, citizenship, and up- 
lift our minds and hearts to loftier and more unselfish 
ideals. 

Hay, his able and discriminating Secretary of State, 
has called him, you will remember, **one of the simple 
great ones"; and in his matchless memorial oration, 
has told us that McKinley showed us **how a citizen 
and patriot should live, and how a Christian and a 
gentleman should die." 

47 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

As Chief Executive, his Cabinet, composed of our 
best and most distinguished, recognized him, not 
merely as their leader in official rank and position, but 
also as their chief in attainment and ability. Living, 
he inspired their respect and devotion, and after his 
tragic and lamentable death, they imited without re- 
serve in sincere and eloquent tributes to his worth. 
Never was leader more loyally and devoutly served. 
Never was one more sincerely mourned. Their poig- 
nant grief at his ''-untimely taking off" was matched 
alone by their confidence, their respect, and their 
admiration while they were his advisors. 

"Oh, do not let the people hurt him," he exclaimed 
to Mr. John Milbum, after the imspeakable assassin 
had fired the fatal shot. Let me ask you, my friends, 
did ever frail, human nature climb to the top of a 
higher mountain? 

He was one of the great presidents. He seemed to 
have possessed in large measure, the shining qualities 
of some of the most distinguished and best beloved of 
his predecessors in the high office. His character was 
composite. In wisdom and prophetic vision, in ab- 
sorbing love of coimtry, in unsparing devotion to her 
interests, in absolute faith in her future, and in con- 
fidence in her high mission, he reminds one of Wash- 
ington. His tact, his patience, his imerring political 
sagacity, his tenderness, his forbearance, and above 
all, his gracious magnanimity, makes one think of 
Lincoln. His good sense and courage were akin to 

48 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

those of Grover Cleveland. And his persuasive, 
captivating and convincing eloquence was like that of 
Garfield. 

"Were a star quenched on high, 

For ages would its light, 
Still traveling downward from the sky. 

Shine on our mortal sight. 

"So when a great man dies, 

For years beyond our ken, 
The light he leaves behind him 

Shines upon the paths of men." 

It is to insure and perpetuate the constant shining 
of the brilliant, yet mellow, beams which radiate from 
the life and character of William McKinley that this 
Memorial will be erected. 

I remember that some month's after McKinley's 
death, one of the leading members of his Cabinet 
passionately exclaimed, in substance, in my presence: 

"Oh, if McKinley had only lived, how these vexing 
and anno3dng problems which have been thrust upon 
the people, and the troubles and disturbances which 
have been stirred up, would have disappeared like 
snow before the morning sun." 

In the brief time allotted to me, I am unable to dwell 
at any length upon the many notable achievements of 
his administration, and there is no need, for while men 
love Justice, they can never be forgotten. 

49 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

The business of the country which lay languishing 
and atrophied, prone and panting, revived under his 
guidance, and prospered. He administered to our 
prostrated American industries, the stimulating oxy- 
gen of a proper protective tariff, and they grew strong 
again. 

"I had rather," said this wise President, "open the 
mills of America to the labor of America, than the 
mints of America to the silver of the world." And 
straightway, after his election, while the mills were so 
opened, the mints were so closed. 

Since the war, he was the first president of a united 
country. It was he who dropped the fragrant flowers 
of a wise and patriotic forgetfulness on the graves of 
dead issues, and so adorned them. 

It was due to him and his able Prime Minister that 
the "open door" in China was established and rec- 
ognized; that the rights of the oppressed Jews were 
championed and their conditions bettered; that our 
foreign policy, foimded not on craft, but on candor 
and right, took on a new dignity and exacted an added 
respect from other nations. 

When, while he was president, we had conquered 
Spain, and acquired Cuba, the world was convinced 
that this great republic was not to be moved by selfish 
motives of aggression in the prosecution of the war; 
since without money and without price, the gleaming 
jewel of the seas was restored to its rightful and legiti- 
mate possessors. When imder his chief command, our 

50 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

gallant sailors and gallant soldiers, the one on sea, the 
other on shore, had broken the power of Spain, and 
had captured and possessed the Phillippines, he rec- 
ognized that while by every principle of international 
law, the Islands were ours, they were ours only by 
conquest. He believed that our Government, while 
it should fearlessly hold its own forever and a day, by 
right of sword if need be, should never take property 
from others by the use of the sword. His policy was 
not that of the Robber Baron, and he was not content 
until we had paid to Spain a full and fair price for the 
Islands. 

It was due to his benevolent and statesmanlike in- 
fluence that our share of the indemnity which the 
other leading nations of the earth exacted from China 
for having sent their armies to suppress the Boxer 
Rebellion (amounting to millions of dollars) was 
promptly returned to the Chinese Government to be 
used by it for educational purposes. 

No loftier and more unselfish international trans- 
actions were ever consummated; and this record of 
inestimable value, this high example to other nations, 
of generosity, justice, and forbearance, this glorious 
exposition and proof of the high aims and aspirations 
of our great republic, we, and the world, owe in large 
measure to the efforts and influence of a plain, self- 
educated and self-made American, born in the town 
of Niles. 

No memorial which the open purses of loving 

51 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

countnanen can provide, or distinguished architect 
design, or skilled workmen build, or consummate 
artist embellish, can ever adequately represent the 
splendor of his deeds; the full and perfect harmony 
of his well rounded life; or the serene, but glowing, 
beauty of his unselfish character. What painting can 
depict, however brilliant and wonderful, what 
marble, however dazzlingly white and beautifully 
carved, can represent, I should like to know, his 
tender, loving and constant care of his invalid wife? 

I am speaking today more particularly to you, his 
friends and neighbors, who, like myself, had the privi- 
lege of walking with him in private, rather than in 
public places; who had the happy fortune of basking 
in the radiance of his winning smile; of feeling the 
warmth of his magnetic hand-clasp; of being uplifted 
by his indomitable optimism and hope, and cheered 
and helped by his exhaustless sympathy. 

How can I properly define in language the feeling 
which we cherish for him? The words of the poet 
Moore, come to me: 

"Oh, call it by some other name, 
For friendship soimds too cold." 

William McKinley was simple, but not unwise; 
sympathetic, but discriminating; dignified, but not 
arrogant; childlike, but not childish; gentle, but not 
weak; strong, but not overbearing; prudent, but not 
cowardly. He was the most approachable of m.en, 
and "the common people, heard him gladly." 

52 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

I wish to relate two incidents not generally known, 
illustrative of his tact, his patience, and his wise con- 
sideration for the feelings of others: 

At the time of the Boxer Rebellion, when the diplo- 
matic representatives of other nations were in danger, 
and military forces were being sent by all the leading 
countries to suppress the Rebellion and rescue their 
diplomatists, and our troops were in transit under 
command of General Chaffee, McKinley was taking a 
needed rest at his home in Canton, Ohio. The long 
distance telephone was situated between two windows 
running to the floor of the room. Under one of them, 
and projecting from the foundation of the house, was a 
faucet to which his gardner was in the habit of con- 
necting a hose with which to water the lawn. One 
morning, the President was called to the long distance 
telephone by his two great Secretaries, Hay and Root. 
A message had been received in Washington from the 
Czar of all the Russias and the Emperor of Germany, 
requesting that the President of the United States 
should place the American soldiers under the com- 
mand of Count Waldersee, the German general, in 
order to insure harmony of action on the part of the 
allied armies. It was a momentous dispatch, and 
serious results might depend upon its proper and in- 
telligent answer. 

There was some paving going on in the street oppo- 
site the house, and as the day was warm, the work- 

53 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

men became thirsty, so one of their number was sent 
for water. He naturally thought, and thought only of 
going to the house of the President, as he was sure of 
considerate and generous treatment there. So while 
the Chief Executive of this great nation was consult- 
ing with his Secretaries concerning this important 
matter over the telephone, John walked up, hung his 
pail on the faucet and turned on the water. The water 
running into the pail made a great deal of noise and 
disturbed the President, the windows being open. 
He asked his Secretaries to wait a moment, and then 
leaning forward and looking out of the window, said: 

"John, that water running in the pail makes a very 
disturbing noise, and I am busy talking over the long 
distance telephone. Please turn it off for a few mom- 
ents." 

*'A11 right. Major," replied John, and turning off the 
water, he filled his pipe and lighted it, and then sitting 
down with his back to the house, listened to the con- 
versation which the President was carrying on. 

Here was the ruler of a hundred millions of people 
engaged in the transaction of most important and 
serious public business, and there was a common 
laborer, intruding himself into the transaction; but 
McKinley was not impatient, nor did he resent, as 
almost any other man would, this interference. He 
dictated to his Secretaries over the telephone that 
famous and "McKinleyesque" reply, consenting that 
the American troops should be placed imder the com- 

54 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

mand of the German General on the condition that 
this Government at any time reserved the right to 
revoke the permission, provided the policy of the 
army so commanded ran in any way counter to the 
ideas of the United States. An admirable reply, the 
wisdom of which was quickly approved by the public 
when they learned of it. Having dictated this im- 
portant dispatch, the President himg up the receiver, 
but he did not forget John. 

"John," he said, "I am through now, and you can 
turn on the water again." 

John did so, and then leaning on the window sill, 
said: "Major," (because all the laboring men in 
Canton called him by that familiar title) "Major, I 
hope you are going to settle that Chinese question 
all right, ain't you"? 

"I hope so, John," said the great Executive. 

"Well, Major," replied John, "You don't need to be 
too dem yielding, for all of us boys are behind you." 

"Thank you, John," said the great President, and 
the incident was closed. 

And here is another story showing his wisdom, 
sjmipathy and infinite tact: 

It was in the Fall of 1898 that President McKinley, 
forced by public clamor, appointed a commission to 
investigate the administration of the War Depart- 
ment during the Spanish-American War. General 
Alger, feeling that his untiring efforts, which had re- 
sulted in the raising and equipping of an army of more 

55 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

than 200,000 men in a scant ninety days, had not 
been properly appreciated by his countrymen, was 
naturally sensitive to this criticism. In November of 
that year the President and Governors of the several 
states issued their Thanksgiving proclamations, and 
among them Governor Brady, an appointee of Presi- 
dent McKinley, then Governor of Alaska, issued one, 
although it was not usual for territorial Governors to 
do so. His proclamation contained several injudicious 
statements, for all executives are not moderate and 
considerate. He said that the main cause why the 
people of the United States should thank God that 
year was that the President had been moved at last 
to appoint a commission which would expose the cor- 
ruption and incompetency of the War Department, 
and would obtain evidence by which the rascality in it 
could be properly punished. 

A m^ember of the Cabinet, who related the incident 
to me, foimd this proclamation in his morning paper 
on the Friday before Thanksgiving. It was also 
Cabinet day. Knowing how sensitive General Alger 
was, he augured ill results from it. He felt sure that 
the General would either demand the instant removal 
of Governor Brady, or would insist that his own resig- 
nation as Secretary of War should be promptly 
accepted. Either alternative seemed to be deplorable. 
If the President removed Brady the people might 
infer that he was intending to suppress the investiga- 
tion of the War Department; if, on the other hand, the 

56 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

Secretary's resignation was accepted it might appear 
like a retreat under fire. 

At the Cabinet meeting that day General Alger was 
present, and pale with anger, and with his voice tremb- 
ling with emotion, said: '*Mr. President, I have a 
request to make of you, sir." "What is it Mr. Secre- 
tary"? said the President. **I must demand, sir, that 
one of your appointees shall have his head taken off 
immediately at the shoulders, or that my resignation 
as your Secretary of War be instantly accepted." He 
then read to the President the proclamation. "Oh"! 
said McKinley, his voice filled with sympathy and 
regret, "it is too bad that Governor Brady should have 
been so injudicious, so unjust and so unfair. Let me 
read that proclamation." The Cabinet was silent 
until he had finished its perusal. Then he said: "Mr. 
Secretary, I am Commander-in-Chief of the Army of 
the United States. I am the head of the War Depart- 
ment. If there has been any incompetency and ras- 
cality and corruption there, I am responsible to the 
people of the United States for it. Governor Brady 
nowhere mentions your name, Mr. Secretary, in this 
proclamation. Perhaps he does not mean you at all. 
He may mean me." "All the more reason, Mr. Presi- 
dent," then said the Secretary, "why his head should 
come off." "Well," said McKinley gently, "leave 
the proclamation with me. I will carefully examine 
it at my leisure and I will conclude after deliberation 
whether Governor Brady meant you in this unfortu- 

57 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

nate statement of his or me, and if I conclude he meant 
you I will promptly remove him." "Thank you, Mr. 
President," said the Secretary, "that is all that I can 
possibly ask." "But," continued the President, "if 
I conclude that he does not mean you, but means me, 
would you not like to know what I intend to do in the 
matter"? "Yes," Mr. President, "said the Secre- 
tary." "Well," said McKinley, with a tender smile 
on his face, his words were 

"... shed softer than leaves from the pine;" 
and they fell on those present, 
"... as snow on the brine, 

That mingle their softness and quiet in one 

With the shaggy imrest they float down upon." 
"Well," said McKinley, "if after careful examination, 
I find that in this ill-considered and unwise procla- 
mation, he does not mean you, but means me, I am go- 
ing to forgive him." 

Tears came into the Secretary's eyes, and im- 
pulsively he said "Mr. President, pray pursue the 
matter no further. I myself will forget the procla- 
mation and forgive Governor Brady." 

And it is because of these fine and lovable traits in 
Mr. McKinley's character that he became so great and 
good a President, and it is because of them that we, 
his countrymen, cherish now, and will ever cherish for 
him, a love that never shall die. 

William McKinley forgot only himself; and so he 
himself shall never be forgotten. 

58 



VII 



THEY BUILDED BETTER THAN 
THEY KNEW 

Fourth of July address delivered at Soldiers' and Sailors* 
Homey Erie County^ July 4thy i8g5. 

T^HE great paper which was given to the world on 
-■• July 4, 1776, was more than a proclamation of po- 
litical freedom, — it was a proclamation of intellectual 
and religious freedom. Mind, body and soul were alike 
enfranchised. The Declaration of Independence was 
a culmination. It was the first great step toward 
political and religious freedom which the thirteen 
colonies took together. When it was promulgated, 
Judge Drayton of South Carolina said, "A decree has 
now gone forth not to be recalled, and thus has sud- 
denly risen in the world a new empire, styled The 
United States of America." 

The Declaration of Independence however, was 
only one of the stones forming a part of the great 
structure. Before freedom was achieved, the adop- 
tion of a constitution for the infant republic was 
necessary; years of bloody strife were to be endured. 
A single swallow does not make the summer; a single 
rose, however, choice and fragrant, does not make the 
whole garden bloom, and, if our fathers had rested 

59 



THEY BUILDED BETTER THAN THEY KNEW 

simply on that Declaration of Independence, this 
government never would have had its existence. 
Under a wise Providence, elements, curiously diverse, 
were brought together on this continent and acted to- 
gether for the accomplishment of the magnificent 
result. The causes leading to this result were com- 
plex. It needed the gallant and reckless daring of 
the cavaliers of Virginia and the Carolinas, the inex- 
orable firmness and indomitable steadfastness of the 
roundheads of Massachuestts, the shrewd wisdom of 
the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the plodding, cautious 
temperament of the Dutch of New York, and the 
broad liberality of the settlers of Rhode Island, all 
acting and re-acting upon each other, to produce the 
best government that the world has ever seen. 

All of these various causes contributed to the great 
achievement, and the labor of all of these has entered 
into its very warp and woof. But, nevertheless, 
through the mighty fabric, adding to its glory and 
adorning its beauty, runs the golden thread of the 
great Declaration of Independence, which was given 
to the world on the 4th of July, 1776. 

However greatly we admire Shakespeare, I think, 
if we read him with discrimination, we are forced to 
the conclusion that that mighty master of thought 
and language was probably unconscious of the full 
greatness of his work. Earnest searchers since his 
timie have discovered in his pregnant sentences beau- 
ties and truths of which the Bard of Avon never 

60 



THEY BUILDED BETTER THAN THEY KNEW 

dreamed. We, who come after him, have drawn, from 
the "well of English undefiled," sweeter waters than he 
himself ever tasted; and have found, in the rich de- 
posits of his thoughts, gems of purer ray than those 
which ever gladdened his mortal sight. It is indeed 
true — 

"... there is a Divinity that shapes our ends. 
Rough-hew them how we will." 

Now, the great men who drew up and signed the 
Declaration of Independence were, in my judgment, 
to an extent, unconscious agents. They builded 
better then they knew, or even dreamed. They may 
have had some faint notion of the grandeur of the 
structure which would be erected on the cornerstone 
which they so prayerftilly, but fearfully, laid on that 
memorable day, but it must have been, after all, a 
faint notion. Not even the most sanguine of them 
could have imagined that, in a little more than a 
century, a government, founded on the equality of 
men before the law, would have become the most 
powerful of any. But the fact that they were, per- 
haps, unconscious of what the future had in store, 
makes their courage all the more conspicuous, and the 
credit to which they are entitled only the greater. 

The war waged by the colonies was not their war of 
independence alone, — it was waged for the independ- 
ence of people the world over. The Revolution was 
not simply American, — it was a universal revolution. 
The Declaration of Independence was not for the 

61 



THEY BUILDED BETTER THAN THEY KNEW 

benefit of the United States alone, — it was for the 
benefit of the whole world; and, since that time, free- 
dom has been the rule and despotism the exception. 

The Fathers of the Revolution declared their own 
independence and, in so doing, made millions of others 
free; they sought to found one liberal government and, 
as a result, all governments have been liberalized; 
they engaged in a revolution which had for its object 
the establishment of their own rights and the rights of 
their descendants, and behold, the rights of all man- 
kind since that time have been more righteously 
regarded. 

At the beginning of the Federal Convention in 
1787, it was suggested by some of the members, who 
were seized with a sort of moral cowardice, that prob- 
ably, no form of government which the convention 
might adopt would be afterwards ratified by the people 
of the United States. Half measures were suggested, 
compromises were hinted at. Some of the delegates 
went so far as to announce that it would be more ex- 
pedient for the convention to adopt a constitution 
which would be certain to be imderstood and accepted 
by the people, rather than to adopt one which would 
meet the approval of the convention itself. 

Washington, who presided, arose in the President's 
chair and delivered a short speech, imequalled for its 
eloquence and wisdom in the annals of our history. 
In solemn tones he said, *lt is too probable that no 
plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another 

62 



THEY BUILDED BETTER THAN THEY KNEW 

dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the 
people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how 
can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a 
standard to which the wise and honest can repair. 
The event is in the hand of God." 

It is only within the last thirty years that the gov- 
ernment of the United States has, after all, been really 
free. The independence for which our fathers fought, 
was the independence of some, and not all. It was 
not until Lee surrendered at Appomattox that freedom 
on these shores was finally accomplished. 

To an extent, the foimders of our government com- 
promised with wrong. It was the freedom of the 
white man and not of the black man, that was de- 
clared on the 4th of July, 1776. It was the freedom 
of a favored class that the constitution guaranteed. 
For nearly a hundred years our government professed 
what it did not really practice. It was a free govern- 
ment only in name. It required another stupendous 
struggle; it required the loss of treasure immeasurable; 
the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of human lives, 
before we became really and in fact free. The inde- 
pendence we today celebrate is a truer and grander 
independence than that which was declared one hun- 
dred and nineteen years ago. 



63 



VIII 

THE BIRTHPLACE OF REAL 
INDEPENDENCE 

HOW ROGER WILLIAMS DETERMINED IT. 

From Speech Delivered at Brown University Dinner at 
Delmonico^s^ New York, March I2th, i8g8. 

ON a cold December day, the Pilgrim Fathers left 
the sea-smitten Mayflower and landed, under 
lowering skies, on Massachusetts' inhospitable shore. 
They had cut loose from civilization and fond associa- 
tions. They had left homes and friends behind them, 
and gone into the wilderness, in order that they might 
worship God according to the dictates of their own 
consciences. But, great and grand as were the char- 
acteristics of the Puritans, they were nevertheless 
intolerant, and, after all, the liberty they craved and 
for which they endured dangers and breasted the sea, 
they were unwilling to extend to others. Insisting, 
as they did, on their right to worship God in their own 
way, they sought to compel all other men to worship 
Him in their way too. 

The Massachusetts colony which they foimded was 
a pure theocracy. Church and State were not only 
united; but the Church itself was the State. No one 
could hold civil office, unless he adopted their religious 

65 



THE BIRTHPLACE OF REAL INDEPENDENCE 

beliefs and joined their churches. Men, and even 
women, were punished, were publicly whipped for a 
failure in religious observance. Their clergymen were 
despots. Their pulpits were their rostrums and their 
creeds were their political platforms. They had fled 
themselves, from persecution; but they, in turn, 
grimly persecuted others, and drove them away also. 
They himg witches and scourged Anabaptists and slit 
the ears and noses of Quakers. It was their own 
liberty they were contending for, not the liberty of 
mankind. Hawthorne tells us, you know, how he 
never closed his eyes at night without thanking Al- 
mighty God that he was descended from Puritan an- 
cestors; but, as he remembered their bigotry and 
intolerance, he also never failed to return thanks that 
he was one day further removed from those ancestors. 
One day there came to the Massachusetts colony a 
young man of culture and ability, of strong will, of 
pure purpose, of broad view and of catholic spirit. 
He was a preacher by profession. One Roger Wil- 
liams, by name. He was for a time pastor of a church 
at Plymouth, and then again at Salem. With his ad- 
vent, came the dawn of real liberty on this continent. 
He insisted upon the absolute divorce of Church and 
State. He raised his voice in behalf of intellectual 
and religious freedom. He fearlessly argued that 
every man had a right to worship God according to 
the dictates of his own conscience or not at all if he 
preferred; and that none had any power to control the 

66 



1 



THE BIRTHPLACE OF REAL INDEPENDENCE 

intellect of another. He unchained thought and 
preached its absolute enfranchisement. He insisted 
that laws compelling attendance at church were harm- 
ful and unjust. Himself a devout believer he yet 
claimed the same freedom even for the Atheist. He 
advocated persuasion, not pimishment; conversion, 
not coercion. He informed the Puritans that * 'christ- 
enings do not make Christians;" that the doctrine of 
persecution for cause of conscience is most evidently 
and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Jesus 
Christ. 

He said, further, that an unbelieving soul is dead in 
sin and quaintly remarked that, to compel the in- 
different and imwilling to go from one worship to 
another was "like shifting a dead man into several 
changes of apparel." Said he — **No one should be 
bound to worship or maintain worship against his own 
consent." He asserted that thought should not be 
shackled. In short he set up on this continent the 
standard of real liberty; and so the plain people began 
to rally aroimd him. But he was obliged to suffer for 
his catholic faith. 

In the bleak month of January, 1636, one hundred 
and forty years before the broad Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was annoimced, he was compelled to flee as 
an exile from the Massachusetts colony. With some 
few associates, in the dead of winter, he left behind 
him the inhospitable Puritans and sought the fellow- 
ship of the more hospitable savages. Sailing down 

67 



THE BIRTHPLACE OF REAL INDEPENDENCE 

the Seebonk in a canoe, he fled to a place which he 
called Providence, and founded there a colony which 
afterward, by royal charter, became known as the 
Providence Plantations. 

This colony rested on absolute intellectual and re- 
ligious freedom as its broad foundation stones. To it 
came all the sufferers for conscience's sake. *'I 
desire," said he, "it might be a shelter for persons dis- 
tressed for conscience's sake." Atheist and Presby- 
terian, Quaker and Baptist, were alike welcome there. 
It was in Rhode Island, and by the liberal, humane and 
far-seeing Roger Williams that real independence on 
this continent was first declared. 



68 



^ 



Political Addresses 



The average judgment of many men is far more apt 
to be correct than the single judgment of any one man, 
however pure, able, or disinterested he may be. — J. H. H. 



IX 



JOHN HAY: SECRETARY OF STATE 

Address at the Ohio Society Dinner^ given Jan. lyth^ ipoj, 
in honor of Hon. John Hay. 

TT has been currently reported, and generally be- 
-■- lieved that the term "American Diplomacy" is some- 
thing of a misnomer. In our relations with foreign 
nations, we have been often accused of being blunt 
rather than tactful, arrogant rather than persuasive, 
candid rather than diplomatic. 

A story which I have only lately heard, and which 
I hope you have not heard at all, illustrates this. 
Some little time ago, a diplomatic dinner was given 
abroad, at which the representatives of all the great 
powers were present. The Ambassador of Great 
Britain was lamenting to the Ambassador of France 
that on his last visit to Paris, he had failed to purchase 
some extraordinarily beautiful and rare pieces of 
tapestry, that were offered for sale at moderate prices, 
and that he had forever lost an opportunity of acquir- 
ing those valuable objects of art for a comparatively 
small sum. The commercial side of the transaction 
appealed to the American Minister, awakened his 
interest, and erected his ears, as the Greeks used to 
say. He leaned over and remarked, * 'Excellency, 

71 



JOHN HAY: SECRETARY OF STATE 

there is no use in crying over spilled milk. We have 
all lost chances to make cheap bargains in our lives. 
Why, after the Chicago fire I could have bought the 
whole windy city for a pair of rubber boots." "And 
why did you not make the purchase?" suavely asked 
the Italian Ambassador. **Why did I not make the 
purchase?" replied the American diplomat. "Hell, 
I didn't have the boots." 

But such criticism cannot be made of our diplomacy 
while John Hay stands forth as the chief exponent of 
it. He not only discharges the duties of his high 
office, but he adorns them. I am sure I will touch the 
sensibilities of no one of our guests here, when I say 
that our Secretary, the poet, the scholar, the historian, 
the virile but exquisitely graceful and tasteful orator, 
the trained diplomat, but above all, the wise, farseeing, 
determined, just statesman, is the peer of any minister 
for foreign affairs. 

When one of our public servants has fairly won our 
confidence in his discretion, he always becomes deserv- 
edly great in our estimation. It was because of this 
quality that the loved and lamented McKinley will 
stand in history by the side of the calm, majestic 
Washington, by the side of the sagacious and patient 
Lincoln. It was because the honored guest of the 
evening possessed this essential quality of discretion 
that the illustrious Ohioan made him his prime minister, 
and the present honored President of the United 
States has retained him as such. While John Hay 

72 



JOHN HAY: SECRETARY OF STATE 

remains Secretary of State, we Americans can sleep 
nights. We know that while he administers our for- 
eign affairs, no encroachment upon the dignity, and no 
impairment of the rights of the great Republic will be 
tolerated, but we know also that no unwarranted or 
imjust claims on behalf of the Republic will be put 
forward. We feel sure that he will hold aloft the 
Stars and Stripes with a firm and steady hand, with a 
courage unflinching and with a patience indomitable, 
but we feel equally sure that he will never lower the 
dignity of that majestic emblem by needlessly flaunt- 
ing it in the face of the world. 

Colonel Hay's lamented chief, as I have said, has 
taken his place in history with the great triumvirate 
of American Presidents, for Washington, Lincoln and 
McKinley stand now and will forever stand, in one 
immortal group. When our Secretary — ^may the day 
be far distant — exchanges the laurel wreath he now 
wears for the imperishable crown which God Himself 
places upon the brows of those who labor unselfishly 
for their fellow men, he too will join a great trium- 
virate — a triimivirate of American Secretaries of 
State — for Webster, Seward and Hay will stand to- 
gether in one group in Columbia's Temple of Fame. 

It may not be well for me, in this presence to, too 
greatly enlarge upon the diplomatic triumphs of our 
Secretary. But this I can say, and feel justified in 
saying: that imder his wise, conservative, and yet 
courageous administration of the State Department, 

73 



JOHN HAY: SECRETARY OF STATE 

the prestige of the United States has been largely, but 
not unduly increased, while at the same time, the pres- 
tige of no other nation on earth has been imfairly or 
unduly diminished. When his diplomatic key un- 
locked the Chinese closed door, and made it forever 
an open door, those portals were not so opened for the 
purpose of admitting American capital and American 
products alone. China became no less a land of 
promise for the other nations of the earth, and all were 
and are permitted on fair and equal terms to enter 
there. Since the Boxer outbreak, the United States, 
under his leadership, has always stood on the side of a 
merciful forbearance and a large magnanimity. 

The Treaty with Great Britain, superseding the 
Clayton-Bulwer treaty, has made possible, without 
either controversy or breach of faith, the Isthmian 
Canal, which while at the same time, promoting 
American interests, will also enlarge the opportunities 
of the whole world. 

His services toward the establishment of the Hague 
Tribunal, making war less and peace more probable, 
were not selfishly rendered for the benefit of us alone, 
but for all mankind. His eloquent plea in behalf of 
the down-trodden Hebrews of Roumania, voiced not 
alone the sentiments of his own countrymen, but the 
sentiments of the enlightened and civilized world; and 
in the present jimcture of affairs — happily no longer 
critical — of one thing, we his countrymen are serenely 
confident, that in his hands the Monroe Doctrine — 

74 



JOHN HAY: SECRETARY OF STATE 

for the integrity of which this Government has stood 
for years and will always stand — will be preserved; but 
we are just as serenely confident that it will not be 
unduly or unwarrantably extended. 

In his administration of foreign affairs, the Secre- 
tary has sought earnestly imtil he discovered the just 
thing, and then he has done it imfiinchingly and 
courageously. 

His fame rests now, and will always rest upon 
Justice for its broad foundation stone, and as his 
illustrious predecessor, Mr. Webster, so well said 
"Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth." 

You all remember the statement that was made by 
one great Englishman concerning another. The first, 
famous as an orator and author, and the other one of 
England's foremost Secretaries of State for foreign 
affairs. At a time when most Englishmen quaked 
with fear, this great Minister was undaunted; in a 
period of venality he was conspicuous for his incor- 
ruptibility; and so his eloquent and discriminating 
coimtryman has well said of him 'The Secretary stood 
alone; modern degeneracy had not reached him." 
Such a statem.ent can never be correctly or appro- 
priately made of Colonel Hay, for while it is true that 
degeneracy, whether modem or ancient, never has 
reached him, and never will reach him; he does not 
stand alone, for eighty millions of his admiring, ap- 
plauding and grateful countrymen stand with him. 



75 



X 



PURITAN AND FILIPINO 

Address delivered at Farewell Dinner to Hon. William H. Toft, 
Cincinnati^ Ohio, March 24, igoo. 

TT is not surprising that an agnostic (famous alike 
-■■ for his eloquence and wit) permitted himself to won- 
der why, if a merciful God really existed, He did not 
make "good health contagious instead of disease"; or 
that he complained with some bitterness that there 
was apparently just as much "design in a loathsome 
cancer as in a beautiful and fragrant rose." 

This world is apparently a pretty hard place. A 
place where strength almost always conquers and 
where weakness almost always falls. A place into 
which we are forced to come and out of which we are 
forced to go alike without our consent. The sparrow 
kills the worm, the kite the sparrow and the hawk the 
kite, while man kills them all. The life of one crea- 
ture depends upon the death of another creature. 

The glory, the power, the wealth of some are bought 
at the expense of the dishonor, the failure, the poverty 
of others. Not only the poor, but the suffering, the 
miserable and unfortunate are always with us. What 
matters it that the wings of the wounded bird flutter? 
What matters the despairing plaint of the slaughtered 

77 



PURITAN AND FILIPINO 

lamb? WTiat matters it that thousands of the com- 
mon people of the world have been struck to death or 
shot to death on the world's great battlefields? The 
awful and majestic law of the survival of the fittest 
works out its inexorable sanctions with a pitiless and 
ruthless persistence. 

No wonder that the agnostic questions; for, imless 
the dark pages of history are illumined by the clear 
beams shot out by the bright lamp of a profound and 
reverent belief in the existence of Him who sees the 
end from the beginning, they are hard indeed to read. 
Unless the searchlight of a confident faith, "that good 
will somehow be the final goal of ill," lightens the 
pathway far ahead of us, the future is gloomy enough. 

Now, of all the harsh laws, by which the destinies 
are controlled, surely the one apparently the most 
harsh and severe is that by which a dying, effete or 
improgressive race seems boimd to give way to a grow- 
ing, dominant, progressive one. By which ignorance 
and bigotry, however, brave and heroic, are driven 
back by enlightenment; and barbarism, however 
picturesque, is displaced by civilization. 

It seems hard on the surface of things, that the 
wheels of the great Juggernaut of the world's progress, 
pushed forward as they always are by the vigorous and 
strong, should roll over and crush under them the 
feeble, and ignorant who happen to get in the way. 
But, after all, when you come to analyze it, the work- 
ings of this law have been greatly beneficial to the race 

78 



PURITAN AND FILIPINO 

at large; and, but for it, the world would not have ad- 
vanced. The story of the triumphs of Alexander, has 
indeed, been written in the blood of thousands; but 
his victorious legions carried the banners of civiliza- 
tion forward. 

Because of this law, the refinement and culture of 
Greece touched remote borders. By it the Roman 
Empire, with all its attendant benefits, with its good 
laws and good roads, rose and spread its influence over 
the known world, and then, in its turn, fell a victim to 
more virile forces. 

It is because of this law that the Anglo-Saxon race 
was planted and took root; that England, a little island 
not much larger than the State of New York, extends 
its jurisdiction and dispenses the blessings of good 
government over a territory fifty times larger than 
that of Germany, fifty-three times larger than that of 
France and five times larger than that of the United 
States. And it is because of this law that this conti- 
nent has been reclaimed from savagery and made to 
blossom like the rose. It is because of this law that a 
liberal and free government will be established in our 
latest and most distant possessions. 

When our forefathers came over here, they indeed 
claimed a title to the lands which they proceeded to 
occupy. But, what was that title? It rested on a 
grant from the crown. But, where did the crown get 
its title? Some adventurous spirits had sailed across 
the Atlantic, had seen the land, had returned and 

79 



PURITAN AND FILIPINO 

reported to their sovereign that it was good, and so he 
claimed it as his own — and that was all. The theory, 
that the consent of the occupiers of a country is a 
necessary prerequisite to any proper territorial ex- 
pansion, did not seem to be much in vogue then. 
Well, the Pilgrims came over here in pursuit of happi- 
ness and liberty. They brought the Bible in one 
hand, but they carried the sword or the matchlock 
in the other. When the sturdy Miles Standish was 
not vicariously courting gentle Priscilla, he and his 
followers, those stem saints, were simply mopping the 
earth with the untutored red man and snatching his 
broad acres and his happy hunting groimd from him. 
Everywhere in Massachusetts, in Virginia, in the 
Carolinas, the white men advanced and the red man 
was driven back. Over in Pennsylvania they did 
profess to strike some sort of bargains with him. 
But I fancy that, if Wawatam had filed his petition 
against the shrewd William Penn and others, asking 
that the sale of thousands of broad acres for a few 
necklaces of glass beads should be set aside on the 
groimd of inadequacy of consideration, he would have 
been entitled to a decree. Whether he would have 
gotten it or not is quite another matter. 

I wonder if I may be allowed a personal allusion. 
Something over a hundred years ago, my grandmother 
left Connecticut and went out into the wilderness. My 
grandfather came along with her. I never met my 
grandfather, he died before I was bom. But I have 

80 



PURITAN AND FILIPINO 

been told, by those who knew him and admired him, 
that he was a man of great force and of ability. But 
I did know my grandmother, and I think, without re- 
flection upon his memory, I can truthfully say that 
he came out into the wilderness with hety rather than 
that she came out with him. 

They stopped at Albany and, hiring a flatboat, 
poled up the Mohawk River and settled on what was 
then the extreme frontier — now known as Utica. 
My grandmother was one of the finest women any- 
body ever knew. She lived to be nearly a hundred 
years old, and up to the day of her death, she sat bolt 
upright on the edge of the old settle in the sunshiny 
comer of the old dining-room in the old house in 
Whitesboro street, and knitted woollen stockings for 
her degenerate descendants. To the last her back 
was as straight as one of her own knitting needles, and 
her e^^e was as bright as a robin's. They owned land 
in Utica. And by what title? They got it from a 
land company, which received it by mesne convey- 
ances from those who simply claimed it and said it was 
theirs — that was all. 

My grandparents did not consider to any great ex- 
tent the vested rights of the original proprietors. My 
grandmother was a God-fearing woman; a woman 
of high ideals and noble impulses; a woman of great 
benevolence; a generous woman. But she had no use 
for the savages. She considered them as children of 
the Devil, and she did her part toward displacing 

81 



PURITAN AND FILIPINO 

them and driving them out of their happy hunting 
grounds without a qualm of conscience. It is only 
lately that I have been wondering whether this fine 
old ancestress of mine will be permitted to enjoy the 
delights of Paradise along with Edward Atkinson and 
Senator Pettigrew and others like them; or whether, 
for her sins of commission and omission toward the 
Iroquois and O jib ways, she will be driven out, with 
President McKinley and Admiral Dewey and Judge 
Taft, into outer darkness, where there is wailing and 
gnashing of teeth. 

It was a hard task set before our ancestors, whether 
they were Puritans or Cavaliers; that of redeeming 
this continent from savagery; that of blazing the 
pathway for a great and powerful civilization. It was 
hard for them; but it was harder for the original occu- 
piers of the soil — the Indians, who were obliged to fall 
back before the aggressive, determined and triumphant 
advance of the pioneer. But, is not the world better? 
That is the question. Is not Utica, with its 60,000 
inhabitants; with its schoolhouses, its churches, its 
imposing buildings; surrounded with its fertile, culti- 
vated farms, to be preferred, on the whole, to a village 
of Indian tepees. Is it to be regretted that my grand- 
mother and women like her supplanted Indian squaws? 

Sometime since, a gentleman from the south was 
invited to speak at a dinner given in Boston in com- 
memoration of forefathers' day. He was traveling 
toward Boston, only a few hours before the dinner, 

82 



PURITAN AND FILIPINO 

and was busily turning over his speech in his mind, 
when he was interrupted by an inquisitive New Eng- 
lander, who came into the car and sat down beside him 
and began putting questions to him. These questions 
were extremely distracting to the orator, and he de- 
termined to get rid of the questioner by making his 
answers as brusque and abrupt as possible. This is 
about the conversation they had, as it was reported to 
me. "You don't come from these parts?" "No." 
"Where do you come from?" "The South." "What 
part of the South?" "From Louisiana." "You do 
some planting down there?" "Yes." "You employ 
colored people, I suppose?" "No." "White peo- 
ple?" "No." "You don't do your own work, do 
you?" "No." Who does it for you, then?" "Nig- 
gers." "Say, I guess you were in the war, weren't 
you?" "Yes." "On the Rebel side, too?" "No." 
"On the Union side?" "No." "Well, on what side 
then?" "On the Confederate side." "What were you, 
a private?" "No." "A lieutenant?" "No." "A 
captain?" "No." "A major?" "No." "A colonel?" 
"Yes." "Say, do you think the war could have been 
prevented?" "Yes, I do." "You do?" "Yes, I cer- 
tainly do." "How could it have been prevented?" 
"Why, if instead of the Pilgrim Fathers landing on 
Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock had only landed on 
the damned Pilgrim Fathers, there wouldn't have been 
any war." With Plymouth Rock as a premise, the 
Philippines seem to follow as legitimate conclusions. 

83 



PURITAN AND FILIPINO 

The Puritan and the Cavalier planted the dominant, 
growing Anglo-Saxon civilization on this continent, 
and when, in the process of time, that civilization was 
brought into contact with the dying, oppressive, civil- 
ization of Spain, the one had to go forward and the 
other had to go backward. The Spanish Hidalgo has 
tried his hand at governing the Philippines for some 
centuries, and has made a failure of it. It remains to 
be seen w^hether the American Puritan is equal to the 
task. The task is no light one. It has fallen upon 
us, providentially I believe; and I think the selection 
of Judge Taft as the head of a commission, to whom 
will be committed the solution of the perplexing 
questions which confront us, is also providential. 
This is one of the critical periods in American history. 
We are on trial before a world-wide tribimal. Shall 
we succeed where Spain has lamentably failed? Well, 
if we do not, it will not be Judge Taft's fault. I am 
sure of that. 

He who solves, or helps to solve, the great problem 
of a proper government for the Philippines will deserve 
not only the gratitude of his countrymen, but the ap- 
proval and commendation of mankind. I predict that 
this Puritan, whom America sends out to those far- 
distant lands, will return as one of the acknowledged 
great law-givers of the world. His name on history's 
page will be associated with that of Jefferson, of Madi- 
son, of Franklin and of Marshall. 



84 



XI 



THE PHILIPPINES AND THE SPANISH- 
AMERICAN WAR 

Remarks introducing Hon. John Barrett, formerly United 

States Minister to Siam; at the Opera House, 

Cleveland, Ohio, November i8, i8gg. 

npHE Philippine question is one of the burning ques- 
-■- tions of the hour. Whether the course of this gov- 
ernment in those distant islands has hitherto been wise 
and just or not, and what its future course should be, 
are surely matters of absorbing interest to all Ameri- 
cans. The question is a non-partisan one. It rises 
above the plane of mere politics as we usually narrowly 
define them, and looms up into the clearer atmosphere 
of a broad and comprehensive national and inter- 
national policy. It should be looked at from the 
standpoint of patriotic statesmanship, rather than 
from that of mere partisanship. 

It is a question affecting the interests of all our 
people. Upon its wise solution depends the fate of 
millions in the Orient; depends, in large measure, the 
cause of world-wide civilization, and depends, also> 
the future greatness and prestige of the Republic. 
That it is a non-partisan question is seen from the fact 
that numerous patriotic Democrats are supporting the 

85 



THE PHILIPPINES AND 

policy of a Republican president, while some Republi- 
cans are opposing it. But, surely, whether we are 
Republicans or Democrats or Populists or Socialists or 
Prohibitionists, or what-not; provided only we love 
our country and take pride in the glory and honor of 
its flag, we must be glad to learn, if we can, the truth 
about the Philippines. 

The truth is never unpalatable, save only to those 
who are wrong, who know they are wrong, and who 
have determined to remain wrong. Now, the most 
credible witness, is an eye-witness; if only he be candid 
and intelligent. The testimony of those who have 
read much, but have seen little, should not be as con- 
trolling as the testimony of those who may have read 
less, but have seen more. Fortunately for us, we 
have with us tonight a gentleman who is in all re- 
spects qualified to bear notable witness in this momen- 
tous case, now being tried out before the people — 
our supreme tribunal. He has not only read much 
concerning this engrossing subject, and written much; 
but he has personally made a careful investigation of 
it on the spot. He has had the advantage of an 
acquaintanceship with Aguinaldo himself. He will 
probably be able to tell us whether or not the name 
of that evanescent gentleman should be fitly grouped 
with those of Washington and Lincoln. He has been 
in close intercourse with the admiral, whose victory at 
Manila made our acquisition of those islands possible, 
if not necessary. Perhaps a few words of explanation 

86 



THE SPANISH.AMERICAN WAR 

of the reasons for his presence here just now may not 
be untimely. 

There is a gentleman whose name is greatly honored 
in this community. It is so honored, not only be- 
cause of the philanthropy and public spirit of his fore- 
bears, but, because of his own modest worth, and 
unassuming therefore conspicuous, benevolence. His 
grandfather was Cleveland's pioneer park-giver; and 
he himself, among other reasons for distinction, is 
Cleveland's pioneer globe-trotter. Some years ago 
he built a yacht. She was built in a Cleveland ship- 
yard, made after a Cleveland design, made out of 
Cleveland materials, and put together by Cleveland 
labor. Under the quiet, but adventurous direction of 
her owner, the good little ship Wadena, in spite of 
billows mountain-high, tempest and treacherous ty- 
phoon, has, with her aggressive Cleveland wheel, 
fretted into foam nearly all the waters of the habitable 
globe. She has poked her shapely nose into far- 
distant harbors, breaking the coast-lines of far- 
distant shores. The rattle of her anchor chains and 
the boom of her saluting-gun have advertised to all 
sorts and conditions of men everywhere that there is 
such a place as Cleveland on the map. Some five 
years ago she dropped anchor in the principal harbor 
of Siam. Mr. Wade and his family, like good Ameri- 
cans, naturally called on the representative of their 
government resident there. This representative of 
our government is the speaker of the evening. 

87 



THE PHILIPPINES AND 

At that time he was the youngest United States 
minister in the Orient, if not in the world. He was 
then, as now, doing everything within his power for 
the advancement of his country's interests and for the 
waxing of her prestige. He was then, as now, burn- 
ishing and shaping lustrous fragments which will enter 
into and form a part of History's brilliant mosaic 
picturing the glorious story of American achievement 
in the far east. 

Well, on Thursday of this week, Mr. Barrett, pass- 
ing through Cleveland, stopped over to return Mr. 
Wade's call. Marvelous things for the Republic had 
happened since they last met. The indomitable 
Teddy and the gallant Wood and their brave com- 
panions had planted the flag of the free on the top of 
San Juan hill. Old Joe Wheeler and Chaffee and 
Lawton had carried it in triumph up the slope of El 
Caney. Shafter had run it up on the flag-staff crown- 
ing the roof of the public building in Santiago. Samp- 
son and Schley and their great captains had convinced 
the world that there was only room on the top of 
Cuban waters for one of two hostile fleets, while there 
was room and to spare for all the ships which Spain 
might send there, at the bottom. Lee and Young and 
Brooks and the rest had so managed that, if ever a 
warship is blown up again in the harbor of Havana by 
external causes, it will not be an American warship. 
Miles had captured Porto Rico, greatly helped in so 
doing by the gallantry and courage of our own Gen- 

88 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 

eral Garretson at the battle of Guanica. And, first in 
point of time and first, also, in achievement, because 
of its momentous results, Dewey, the great admiral, 
in a scant three hours, including a long stop for meals, 
had smothered the fire of Spanish forts and ships and, 
by a marvelous act of conveyancing, had vested the 
title to Manila Bay in Uncle Sam and his heirs for- 
ever. 

The cause of civilization had advanced, and the 
Anglo-Saxon race seemed to have taken the right of 
the line in the great march of events. Several gentle- 
men were invited to meet Mr. Barrett, and, after 
listening to him, they were eager that you also should 
hear him. Mr. Hartz, with his usual liberality, 
donated the use of the Opera House. The news- 
papers have assisted cordially in advertising this 
meeting; and, thanks to Mr. Barrett's kindness in 
consenting to remain over to address this audience, 
the people of Cleveland have an opportunity of hearing 
the truth about the Philippines. 

A month or more ago, on the steps of the Capitol, 
the President of the Republic handed to Dewey, the 
great admiral, a sword which the representatives of all 
the people had voted him in recognition of his signal 
service. The diamonds in its hilt shone like the tears 
of pride and gratitude which filled the eyes of all 
Americans when they heard the great news from 
Manilla. The pure gold of its scabbard was emble- 
matic of the shining valor of the great sailor and also, 

89 



THE PHILIPPINES 

of the purity of his patriotism. The glittering blade 
brought to mind the hard blows he struck for his 
country in the shock of battle and his keen thrusts 
in the contests of diplomacy. "Admiral," said the 
President when he handed him this sword, while 
sixty thousand of his approving coimtrymen looked 
on, "Admiral, there was no flaw in your victory. 
There shall be no faltering in maintaining it." The 
speaker of the evening will, perhaps, tell us whether 
this notable declaration of our chief magistrate is 
entitled to our enthusiastic support. I take pleasure 
in introducing the Honorable JohJi Barrett, formerly 
United States Minister to Siam. 



90 



Topical Addresses 



The good man*s neglect is the bad man's opportunity. 
We have no right to complain of had laws and bad public 
administration if we decline to have any hand informing 
those laws or to take part in the administration of public 
affairs.— J. H. H. 



XII 



THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MAINE 

Part of response to toast ''THE PATRIOTS OF 1898'' at dinner 

of the Sons of the American Revolution^ held at Del- 

monico'Sy New York, March /<?, i8p8. 

XXONT forget that, at the mere threat of danger, 
-■-^ the members of both houses of congress, 
irrespective of party, unanimously voted a credit of 
fifty millions, so that this country might be prepared 
for war. Don't forget that, when the flag is threatened, 
there are no Republicans or Democrats or Populists; 
but only Americans. We have a standing army of only 
twenty-seven thousand men, and a first reserve of 
something like two hundred thousand militia; but our 
second reserve consists of ten million valiant hearts 
ready to follow the flag and uphold the dignity of the 
government. Sectional differences are all forgotten 
and the Blue and the Gray are ready to march shoul- 
der to shoulder for the support of their common gov- 
ernment and to win together a common heritage of 
glory, without caring whether the band at the head of 
the column plays "Yankee Doodle" or "Dixie." 

There have been conspicuous examples too of indi- 
vidual patriotism; but in the short limits of a speech 
like this, I can only mention a few of them. There is 

93 



THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MAINE 

the example, first and foremost, of the President of 
the United States. How prudently, and yet how 
grandly, he has conducted himself during the strain of 
the present crisis. The honor of America is safe in his 
hands, and, as he himself has eloquently said, "If war, 
indeed, must come, our part in it will meet not only the 
approval of patriots; but the approval of Almighty 
God." 

Then there is another conspicuous patriot — ^the 
marine who was stationed on the deck of the Maine 
and who, when the great leviathan of the deep blew 
up, turned on his heel as calmly as if in a parade and, 
amid tongues of flame, bursting shells, falling missiles, 
and the shrieks and screams of the woimded and dy- 
ing, and of rushing waters, marched to meet his cap- 
tain hurrying on deck, and, calmly saluting, said, 
"Sir, I have to report that the Maine is blown up". 
That spectacle of courage and of discipline will live in 
history. Though that incomparable blackguard and 
immortal butcher, Weyler, says that the explosion 
was due to the indolence of the crew of the Maine, 
the clear voice of this imnamed American hero, as he 
makes his report, makes a sufficient answer to the 
impudent falsehood. 

What could be finer than the despatch of Captain 
Sigsbee, written shortly after he had given the heart- 
breaking order to abandon ship, in which he requests 
the people of America to suspend judgment until after 
the facts are ascertained? And who is not proud that 

94 



THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MAINE 

Chaplain Chadwick — that unassuming hero, helping 
the sick and comforting the dying and sending mes- 
sages to friends — is an American citizen? 

And then there is that other conspicuous patriot, 
Consul General Lee; unruffled amid danger; calmly 
and fearlessly discharging the duties of his trying 
office with discretion and ability and fidelity, empha- 
sizing the inspiring truth that, while thirty years ago, 
we were divided, we are now but one people. My 
friends, there are as many and as true patriots in the 
year 1898 as there were in 1860 or in 1812 or in 1776. 

"What bosom beats not in his country's cause?" 
and we join in the patriotic toast of the gallant Decatur 
as heartily tonight as when it was first given in 1816 — 

*'Our country! In her intercourse with foreign 
nations, may she always be in the right; but our 
coimtry, right or wrong." 



95 



XIII 
NOW, AND THEN 

Response to toast at banquet of The Sons Of The 

American Revolution^ held at Delmonico's^ 

New Yorky Dec. /d, i8gj. 

T am sure, Mr. Toastmaster, that, if John Hancock 
■*• left his heavenly abode and visited in spirit the 
marvelous white city on the shores of Lake Michigan 
(which, by the way, could not have suffered much in 
comparison), he must have been satisfied that he, at 
least, was reverently remembered when he found there 
a model of his own historic home crowded with people 
from all parts of the great republic he helped to found. 

If I may be allowed a personal allusion, I, myself, 
am not forgetful of the fathers. I cannot be, and I do 
not think my experience is imique. Why, gentlemen, 
I live in a humble cottage, the architecture of which is 
colonial, with here and there a dash of Norman and 
Elizabethan thrown in just by way of contrast. I 
sleep in a colonial bedstead and, as I clamber into it 
by the aid of a step-ladder, which is its necessary ad- 
junct, I am powerfully impressed with the greatness 
of some one's else ancestors. 

On awakening in the morning, I look into the 
cavernous depths of a colonial fire-place, embellished 

97 



NOW, AND THEN 

by a colonial mantel-piece — the shelf of which is of 
course, out of reach — and flanked by two colonial 
andirons; and though the climate of Cleveland is 
inclement and the members of my family incline to 
colds, yet — so reverent are we of all that is venerable — 
the shine of those andirons is never permitted to be 
dinmied by the genial flame of a modem fire. 

I take my most violent exercise sitting in a colonial 
easy-chair, and as I arise from it, that healthful sen- 
sation of weariness comes over me which is indicative 
of a vigorous stretching of all my muscles. I eat my 
food from cracked, but precious, colonial china; I 
drink my coffee from a colonial cup, and I only break 
the continuity of my daily homage to the fathers of 
the Revolution by the use of an apostle spoon. This 
last implement is allowed upon our colonial dining 
table, I fancy, by the one who rules the household, in 
order to convince me that she is not entirely oblivious 
of the existence of the earlier actors in the Christian 
era. 

I read by the intermittent light of a sputtering 
colonial lamp adapted to modem kerosene. In my 
hall stands an imposing colonial sofa, and my eye is the 
only portion of my anatomy which has ever rested on 
it. And I write checks, which are constantly imperil- 
ling the integrity of my reserve — ^and which are used 
exclusively for the acquisition of other colonial frag- 
ments — on a colonial writing desk; which bears un- 
mistakable extemal marks, not only of having been 

98 



NOW, AND THEN 

captured by the British, but of having been retalcen 
by the Continentals; it formed, I believe, a part of the 
breast- works thrown up by Americans on the crest of 
Bunker Hill. It was only the other day that my 
youngest child said to me, as an imposing but vener- 
able, colonial bureau came to pieces under his infant 
touch, "Papa, we really ought to have a brand new 
one." I said nothing, for the reason that the subject 
of furniture is not safely debatable in our household; 
but I never so fully realized the truth of the Scripture: 

"Thou hast hid these things from the wise and pru- 
dent and hast revealed them unto babes." 

In the matter of furniture, our fathers had somewhat 
the advantage of us; they owned it when it was new, 
and we cherish, and polish, and pay for it, now that it 
is old. There is one consolation, however, in living 
among the shattered relics of a bygone civilization, 
— it gives one a sense of comparative youth. You 
necessarily feel, that however your span of life may be 
prolonged, however feeble and tottering you may be- 
come, you will never be as useless and decrepit as is 
your furniture. 

There is another advantage which they had then 
over us now. It must be admitted — ^however re- 
luctantly — that public affairs were more prudently 
and more faithfully administered in the early days of 
the republic than they are now. The reason for this 
is obvious. The majority of intelligent and able 
citizens now leave them severely alone. Politics no 

99 



NOW, AND THEN 

longer fashionable, have almost ceased to be respect- 
able. The good man's indifference is the bad man's 
opportunity. Men go into public life rather for the 
good they can get out of it than for the good they can 
do in it. The highest ambition of the average citizen 
seems to be to accumulate a fortime and avoid the 
payment of taxes. Now and then, when forbearance 
ceases to be a virtue, he arouses to spasmodic action; 
but generally simply growls and nothing more. 

You cannot make a success of anything, much less 
of a republican form of government, by merely offering 
criticisms, however valuable. The very theory of self- 
govermnent presupposes the active co-operation of all. 
The intelligence and integrity of the earlier legislative 
bodies in this country, both state and national, were 
high; they were truly representative assemblies. Of 
the intelligence and integrity of our legislative bodies 
now, the less said the better. I trust, for the credit 
of all of us, that they are no longer . representative 
bodies. We are not surprised at hearing that an es- 
caped convict, the other day, burst into tears of 
humiliation w^hen somebody mistook ham for a con- 
gressman, and it is a matter of common knowledge 
that the most effective way to procure necessary legis- 
lation is to give something to the legislators. We do 
tliis unostentatiously, of course, we give 

** . . . by stealth, and blush to find it fame." 

Is self-goverrmient a failure? Are the institutions 
which our fathers builded falling into decay? 

100 



NOW, AND THEN 

The vivid recollections of the great sacrifices which 
were made for the preservation of the Union a scant 
thirty years ago compel us to answer these questions 
emphatically in the negative; but, surely, it is the 
duty of the Sons of the American Revolution, irre- 
spective of party, to arouse the enthusiasm of our 
citizens and to prevent the spread of dangerous in- 
difference. Shakespeare tells us, that: 

"Home keeping youth have ever homely wits." 
But Shakespeare wrote long before the tide of emi- 
gration had set this way. We do not have to go abroad 
now to study foreign manners and customs. You may 
get many of the benefits, though, I will admit, none of 
the pleasure, of foreign travel by simply paying a visit 
to Castle Garden or to certain quarters in any of our 
great centers of population. It is a pleasure to be 
convinced that there are so many Americans left as 
have assembled here tonight. It is a serious question 
whether we can properly assimilate the heterogeneous 
elements that the Old World is constantly vomitting 
out upon our shores. The digestion of the Republic 
is threatened with impairment, and it behooves every 
true son of the Revolution to use every effort to stem 
the current of ignorance which is flowing our way and, 
at every cost and at all hazards, to prevent those cita- 
dels of freedom — the schools of America — from being 
taken by a foreign power. 

In spite of many discouraging signs, I am sure we 
have no sympathy with the pessimistic notion that 

101 



NOW, AND THEN 

we live in degenerate times; that we are worse than 
our fathers were, and that the past has always been 
better then the present. Such a doctrine would 
oblige us to believe, not only that the times of Wash- 
ington were better than the times of Lincoln, of 
Grant, or of Sherman; but that the times of Adam and 
Eve were better than either; not only that knee 
breeches and periwigs and high-heeled shoes and 
powdered hair and face patches and stomachers were 
more seemly or comxfortable than the present fashions; 
but that the fig-leaf was more appropriate than all. 

Of course, startling instances of depravity and 
crime are brought to our notice every now and then; 
but these are, only on the surface of things. Their 
existence does not militate against the great thought 
that, while the w^orld started very well some thou- 
sands of years ago, it has been constantly getting bet- 
ter and \^ill continue to get better until Creation's 
magnificent plan has been, at last, accomplished. To 
adapt Macauley's illustration: when the tide comxes 
flowing in, the waves on its surface beat against the 
shore and then recede, and if one were to judge only 
from the troubled bosom of the deep, one might fancy 
that the tide was ebbing; but its resistless flow is ever 
onward, until, at last, the high-water mark is reached. 
This is true of civilization — its progress is irresistible; 
and wars and rumors of wars, and strife and troubles 
and crimes and despair are, only ripples upon the sur- 
face of its mighty current. 

102 



XIV 



ON SPECIALIZATION 

An Address at Historical Society Meetings Dec. 2<?, i8gj. 
Introducing Dr. Schouler. 

TF the material and intellectual progress of the next 
•^ century is commensurate with that of this, the 
world will be a curious place to live in, in the year 2,000. 
By the aid of modern appliances, we unthinkingly per- 
form every day things which our forefathers would 
have considered quite as miraculous as those wrought 
in Palestine at the beginning of the Christian Era, and 
what people will be able to do a hundred years from 
now he would be a bold man who would attempt 
either to predict or to deny. When one, by the mere 
ringing of a bell, and helped only by the unseen and 
usually somewhat reluctant co-operation of two or 
three young ladies in telephone exchanges, can attract 
the attention of a friend hundreds of miles away and 
confidentially whisper into his ear; or, when one is 
quickly transported from his house to his office by the 
harnessed and docile thunder-bolts of Jove; or, when 
the very shyest recesses of one's being are exposed by 
the latest photographic appliance, and the privacy 
even of a man's aesophagus is invaded; the sudden 
changing of water into wine at the marriage of Cana, 

103 



ON SPECIALIZATION 

the feeding of some thousands of unexpected guests 
in the desert and the calUng, even of Lazarus from the 
tomb are comparatively less startling now than they 
must have been to our forefathers who read of them a 
hundred years ago by the light of a tallow dip. 

One of the main reasons for this surprising develop- 
ment is because intellectual effort has become spe- 
cialized to a large degree and careful students and 
acute thinkers concentrate their labors in particular 
directions or on particular subjects. We have been 
exemplifying, in our civilization, the truth of the 
ancient maxim, **Non multa, sed multum." We all 
know more because each one of us is not expected to 
know so many things. We do greater execution be- 
cause we use the modern rifle rather than the old 
fashioned blunderbuss. 

There is a story told of a German professor of Greek, 
who lived to the advanced age of eighty years or more. 
He had spent about fifteen hours a day of his entire 
adult life in an exhaustive study of the two Greek 
particles Kai and Gar, and had written perhaps a 
score of bulky volumes on these vital and alluring 
subjects; but, when he was on his deathbed, he called 
several of his associates and the members of his 
family about him and solemnly urged them to learn 
the lesson of, what he was pleased to call, the failure 
of his own life. He regretfully annoimced that he had 
not sufficiently concentrated his energies; that the 
butter of his accomplishement had been spread out 

104 



ON SPECIALIZATION 

too thin over the bread of his endeavor and that, if he 
had devoted himself exclusively to the study of Gar 
alone, he might have contributed something of real 
value to the knowledge of the world. The story is, of 
course, too good to be true; but it nevertheless well 
illustrates the tendency of men to confine their atten- 
tion to particular subjects and to thoroughly master 
them. 

The world has profited enormously by this tendency. 
We all consciously learn more, by living at a time 
when we are enjoying every day the results of these 
specialized labors of others. The comparatively 
ignorant man of today would have been a compara- 
tively learned man a hundred years ago ; that is, if he had 
known then as much as he does now and the rest of 
the world had known as little as it did then. The 
average motorman on one of Philadelphia's street- 
cars could give the wide and advanced philosopher, 
Benjamin Franklin, points in electricity, if he should 
return to the City of Brotherly Love for a short 
sojourn. 

The great Bunsen, if he were brought to life again 
and given an opportunity of taking a course of chem- 
istry in one of our colleges or in one of our public 
schools of the higher grade, would learn much that 
would not only delight and instruct, but surprise him. 

I can easily remember — and I am not as venerable 
as I look — when every physician had among his in- 
struments a curious implement that somewhat re- 

105 



ON SPECIALIZATION 

sembled a bed-key, and with which he was wont, by 
the unpleasant application of the principle of the 
lever, either to extract or break off the teeth of his 
patient. If one now should go to his family physician 
and request him to pull his tooth, he would be quite 
likely to have his nose pulled instead. 

That branch of surgery is exclusively in the hands 
of gentlemen who do nothing else, and dentistry itself 
is being divided and sub-divided into distinct and im- 
portant branches, and perhaps, the time will come 
when every individual tooth in the human head will 
have its own distinct expert. 

Twenty years ago every occulist was quite usually 
an aurist, and at the same time, he treated you with 
equal facility and science for diseases of the throat; 
but now, one cultured gentleman prescribes for your 
eye, another for your ear, descending in his inquiry 
no deeper than the lower opening of the eustachian 
tube, while the care of your vocal chords is exclusively 
committed to another. A physician no longer varies 
the monotony of his practice by amputating a leg one 
momxent and treating a case of alienation the next. 

This specializing tendency is not confined to medi- 
cine. It is seen in the law, although not to the same 
extent, and markedly in science and in other fields of 
inquiry. Men find life too short and time too fleeting 
to exhaustively study more than a particular subject, 
and, as a consequence of their accurate labors in 
special fields, the general knowledge of the world has 

106 



ON SPECIALIZATION 

been enormously increased. 

In the old days, one college professor would gener- 
ally lecture in chemistry, in physics, in physical cul- 
ture, and would as likely as not teach also a class in 
history, in mental and moral philosophy and in theol- 
ogy; but now, one expert deals with electricity alone, 
and another with some distinct branch of chemistry, 
one with light and one with sound, while another con- 
fines himself exclusively to the anatomy of the clam. 
Intellectual co-operation has accomplished much for 
the civilization of this epoch. 

Now, this same tendency to specialize is also marked 
in the field of historic research. Mr. Fiske, that most 
delightful and lucid and helpful of all historical writ- 
ers, has rendered incalculable benefit to his fellowmen, 
because he has confined his attention largely to "Criti- 
cal Periods in American History"! Our distinguished 
former fellow-townsman, Mr. Rhodes, has restricted 
his intelligent labors to the study of a short thirty-five 
years of our national life and, primarily, to the con- 
sideration of a single question which made those 
thirty-five years so eventful. 

The day of long, universal histories, the authors of 
which slid over the past — 

**Nor lighter does the swallow skim 

Along the smooth lake's level brim." 

has gone forever. Science and history have joined 

hands. The latter no longer simply relates effects; 

she has begun a close investigation of causes. We are 

107 



ON SPECIALIZATION 

not satisfied to merely know that some startling epi- 
sode has at some time occurred. We are interested, 
rather, in knowing the reasons for its occurrence. The 
unscientific notion that "histor^^ repeats itself" is ex- 
ploded, and the enlightened student of today finds 
himself almost quite able to predict what may happen 
in the future, not from a study of past events merely; 
but from a study of past and present conditions, 
rather. 

The importance, therefore, of an association like 
this — which has for its object, exhaustive and scien- 
tific hiistorical research which men ordinarily are un- 
able to engage in, and the members of which add 
largely to the store of general laiowledge by giving the 
results of their special and expert labors — cannot be 
over-estim.ated. In our day of the telegraph, the 
telephone, and of the lightning express, what the busy 
layman needs is that someone should to an extent do 
various specialized work for him. It is absolutely 
necessar\% if he has any general laiowledge at all, 
that he should get the concrete results of the labors of 
others, and that those results should be placed be- 
fore hiim in an attractive and easily assimilated form. 
I for one, am very grateful to Mr. Ploetz for his Epi- 
tome of Ancient, Medieval and Modern History; and 
to Mr. Tillinghast, who translated it. I am under 
great obligations to Mr. Larned for his History of 
Ready Reference and Topical Reading. 

We cannot all, of course, be students of history and 

108 



ON SPECIALIZATION 

yet do the rest that our modern civilization seems to 
demand of us; but we can thankfully eat the honey 
which you industrious bees have gathered and pre- 
pared for us. 

If I may be permitted to make a suggestion to a 
body so learned as this, I would say that, perhaps, 
there is a danger that historical writing may become 
too scientific. It is, of course, well to remember, 
when we eat the broth, that certain ingredients have 
gone into the pot and that, under substantially similar 
conditions, the same broth should be produced every 
time; but, the soup, to be palatable, needs a certain 
am.ount of seasoning after all, and we must not be for- 
getful, as we eat it and enjoy it, of the important 
services of the cook. 

There is a middle groimd between the theory of 
Carlyle, on the one hand, and the theory of Buckle, 
on the other. The one believed, if I remember 
rightly, that the history of a nation could only be 
learned by studying the biographies of its great men, 
quite forgetting that the battle of Waterloo was won 
because, at last, the common people of England and 
Germany had overcome the common people of France; 
while the other believed that a great historical event 
was the inexorable consequence of conditions and con- 
ditions only, to be arrived at with absolute certainty 
like a sum in arithmetic — given, for example, the di- 
visor and the dividend, the quotient is a necessary 
result. The one, perhaps, made too much of hero- 

109 



ON SPECIALIZATION 

worship, the other too little; and both, it seems to me, 
forgot the controlling influence of a brooding Provi- 
dence. 

There is a golden mean between the two extremes. 
Much of the beauty, enjoyment and instruction of the 
drama depends upon the mise en scene. We cannot, 
of course, properly study the history of the United 
States, for example, without being familiar with all 
the elements entering into our national life and yet 
that history, robbed of the passion, the tragedy, the 
achievements of the great men who helped to make 
it, would be but a barren and uninspiring narrative. 
It is, of course, well not to forget the importance of 
climate and environment in their effects on the human 
race; but, it seems to me, also, that we should not 
miss the inspiration of the thought that — 
* 'Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime and 
Departing leave behind us 
Foot-prints on the sands of Time." 
I am quite forgetting, however, that I was not ex- 
pected to make a speech, but merely to extend, by 
way of introduction, a hearty welcome, on behalf of 
the citizens of Cleveland, to your association. The 
welcome I am commissioned to so extend is a most 
earnest and cordial one. I have heard that, when 
elephants — those most sagacious beasts — ^travel to- 
gether through an unknown forest, they put in the 
foremost rank the weakest, yoimgest and most use- 

110 



ON SPECIALIZATION 

less of the herd, so that, if perchance there should be a 
pit-fall in the way, or a tiger crouching on a limb 
ready to spring on his prey, the one who can be best 
spared will be taken, while the most powerful and use- 
ful will be left. My function is like that of the small- 
est elephant of the herd. I am merely feeling the way 
tonight, having satisfied those who are to come after 
me that they are not likely to fall into the pit-fall of 
your displeasure or to be lacerated by the sharp claws 
of your criticism; having, as it were, experimentally 
and merely for their benefit, tried the path, I will now 
make way for the more imposing mammoth who is to 
follow me and take great pleasiire in introducing to 
this audience. Dr. Schouler 



Ill 



XV 



POETRY OF SCOTLAND 

Toast delivered at Dinner of Scottish Society ^ 
held in Buffalo^ Nov. 28, 1916. 

TT was not only where "Maxwelton's braes are 
-■- bonny" that Annie Laurie gave her * 'promise true" ; 
for wherever and whenever maids are modest, win- 
some, loving and unselfish; and wherever and whenever 
lads are honest, chivalrous, high-minded and devoted; 
wherever and whenever manhood is prized and woman- 
hood is revered and cherished — there, over and over 
again, and in many languages, she falteringly has 
whispered, and will hereafter whisper her precious 
pledge. 

Wherever freedom has been fought for and died for; 
there hearts have been fired and pulses quickened, and 
arms strengthened, by the inspiring lines, 
"Lay the proud usurpers low, 

Tyrant's fall in every foe, 

Liberty's in every blow; 

Let us do or die." 
These burning words cannot be associated only with 
the conflict of the border, waged about six hundred 
years ago; because they are appropriate to every strug- 
gle where might has lost and right has won. They 

113 



POETRY OF SCOTLAND 

could have been spoken as well before Thermopylae 
or Bunker Hill, as before the famous bloody battle of 
Bannockbum; they might as well have been put in the 
mouths of Washington, of Garibaldi, of Kossuth, as 
in that of the immortal Robert Bruce. 

Wherever wooded hills cluster around crystal waters, 
there, in the gloaming, 

*The sun upon the lake is low, 
The wild birds hush their song; 
The hills have evening's deepest glow." 
Not only on your moors, made beautiful by purple 
heather, but on the swelling, boimdless prairies of the 
great West, is the daisy "companion of the sun," and 
here, as there and everywhere, 

"On waste and woodland, rock and plain, 
Its humble buds unheeded rise. 
The rose has but a summer's reign; 
The daisy never dies." 
In Kamchatka, just as well as in Ayreshire, does 
the "gude wife" totter down the hill, hand in hand 
with John Anderson her Jo, and they 
"... sleep t'gither at the foot." 
That man, 

"... with soul so dead. 
Who never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land." 
is hated and despised the whole world over; and now, 
just as truly as when the Wizard of the North wielded 
his magic pen, such a man, 

114 



POETRY OF SCOTLAND 

"Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And, doubly dying, shall go down, 
To the vile dust from whence he sprung. 
Unwept, unhonored and unsung." 
Whenever and wherever the pain and unrest of the 
world have forced a human being to call on the Infinite 
for succor, what matters it under what sky he kneels, 
or in what language he cries? Still and always 
"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire. 

Uttered or unexpressed; 
The motion of a hidden fire 
That trembles in the breast." 
There is no drink so refreshing as that which bubbles 
up from a cool and natural spring; there is no breeze 
so fragrant and delicious as that which comes to me 
laden with the perfumes of wild flowers. The sky is 
bluer and the sun shines brighter when we are far 
away from the city's bustle and smoke. Most people 
prefer a bunch of sweet, wild wood violets to an orchid, 
however rich in its coloring or marvelous and curious 
its form. 

The poets of Scotland have touched most deftly and 
tenderly those imiversal chords which have their 
center in the throbbing heart of humanity, and, at 
their bidding, the great instrument has given forth its 
deepest, truest tones. 

The poetry of Scotland has certain other marked 
characteristics. In the first place, it is in the main a 
pure poetry. Bobby Burns, of course, has been 

115 



POETRY OF SCOTLAND 

guilty of occasional lapses, but these but emphasize 
his broad sympathy with, and catholic knowledge of 
erring humanity. If you are basking in the warm 
beams of the sun, brightened by its light, strengthened 
and invigorated by its rays, you would be very small 
and mean if you would call attention to the fact that 
there are spots upon its face. So far as I can remem- 
ber, you can read the lines of every other Scottish 
bard with your sweetheart sitting by your side, or 
with your sister looking over your shoulder. No 
sentence of the good Sir Walter's needed to be judi- 
ciously skipped in polite society, nor did one ever 
bring a blush of shame to the cheek of innocence. 
You remember what Scott said to a friend of his 
shortly before death claimed him: 

*T am drawing near the close of my career. I 
have been, perhaps, the most voluminous author of 
the day, and it is a comfort to me to think that I have 
tried to unsettle no man's faith, to corrupt no man's 
principle, and that I have written nothing which, on 
my death-bed, I should wish blotted." 

In your ballads can be heard the clash of steel and 
the moan of the dying, and the shouts of the victor. 
As Lord Marmion turns, 

"... well was his need. 
And dashed the rowels in his steed." 
You can hear the clatter of his horse's hoofs on the 
drawbridge, and your heart stops beating as you listen 
to the clang of the falling portcullis, the bars of which 

116 



POETRY OF SCOTLAND 

descending, "razed his plume." It is the poetry of 
nature, indeed, but not only of nature in her smiling, 
but in her frowning moods. It is the poetry of 
affection and sentiment; but it is the poetry of passion 
as well. 

The poetry of Scotland is, above all, a simple poetry 
and in this fact lies its chief charm. One may admire 
a picture, of a landscape he has never seen, nor ex- 
pects to see, but he turns from it with an eager fond- 
ness to gaze upon a canvas which pictures his mother's 
smile, or a scene around which fond associations clus- 
ter, or which portrays something made real to him by 
reason of actual experience of it. 

Those were great battles which were waged around 
the walls of ancient Troy, in which gods and men took 
such valiant parts. How the earth trembled under 
the chariot wheels of the mighty Achilles, and how 
sturdy were the blows struck by the god-like Hector! 
How Jove thundered and Venus allured, and how 
terrible the jealous rage of the divine Juno! Yet I 
agree with Landor, 

"... The trumpet blasts of Marmion 
Never shook the walls of god-built lUion; 

Yet what shout 
Of the Achaians swells the heart so high"? 

Helen was, no doubt, beautiful, and Paris loved her 
over-much; but the story of their eventful wooing 
never caused me to shed a tear, or to heave a single 
sigh. But the love of Jennie, "woman-grown," for the 

117 



POETRY OF SCOTLAND 

**neebor lad" stirs one's heart to its very depths and 
makes one feel that it is, indeed, true, as your poet 
says: 

"If heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure 
spare, 
One cordial in this melancholy vale, 
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair. 
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale 
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the 
evening gale." 
That was a very stirring experience which the wily 
Ulysses and his sea-tossed companions had in the cave 
with the mighty Polyphemus; and a giant with a 
single gleaming orb in the center of his forehead is no 
doubt, a grand poetic conception, and the descrip- 
tion of it all is very magnificent, and we are very glad 
when the stake, hardened in the fire, is driven well 
home into the blood-shot flaming eye; but, just be- 
tween ourselves, I am much more interested always in 
the fate of the "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," 
which Bums turned over with his plow-share, and in 
the lessons which its withering petals taught. 

The world is greatly indebted, to that divine poet 
who wrote the majestic Inferno, and who kindly 
gave us, as it were, an anticipatory glimpse of the 
horrors that are in store for us if we do not behave 
well; but all the dreadful, frozen terrors of the infernal 
regions, wonderfully described as they are by this 
amazing genius, do not so quicken my conscience, as 

118 



POETRY OF SCOTLAND 

Bums* simple lines to his young friend: 

"The fear o* helFs a hangman*s whip 

To haud the wretch in order; 
But, where you feel your honor grip, 
Let that aye be your border." 
Milton, with an unequalled power of expression, 
and with an imagination so strong and daring that it 
took a sure flight to celestial heights, fails, in any 
sonorous lines of his, to so touch the heart and fill it 
with a sense of God's goodness and mercy as does the 
simple Scottish poet in The Stranger and His Friend. 
If true religion and undefiled means charity and love 
and mutual helpfulness, and if its office is to soften the 
heart and excite pity and love, then surely, there is 
more such religion in a verse of "Auld Lang Syne" 
than in the whole twelve imposing books of Paradise 
Lost. 



119 



Under the Shadow of War 



XVI 
UNDER THE SHADOW OF WAR 



Address at Patriotic Meeting^ February lOy igiy^ 
at the Union Club of Cleveland. 



GENTLEMEN, we have met here tonight to give 
heart-felt, and I am sure, unanimous expression 
of a pledge of support to the President of the United 
States, for the courageous stand he has taken in 
the defense of human freedom and neutral rights, 
and of the rights of American citizens. 

Some of us in the past have thought that perhaps 
the President had been a little slow in acting in this 
great emergency, and have been inclined to criticise his 
conauct somewhat. I frankly acknowledge that I 
have been one of these; I also as frankly ackowledge 
tonight that I was wrong and that he was absolutely 
right. 

If war comes to the United States, which may God 
forbid, there will be no discussion in the history of the 
future as to who began it. It will be known and re- 
lated by the historian of the future that the United 



♦This was my fathers last speech. He died at St. Augustine, Florida, on 
March 21, 1S17, and therefore never had the gratification of knowing that his 
beloved country entered the war as he had so long believed it should. The 
United States entered the World War April 6, 1917. Ed. 

123 



UNDER THE SHADOW OF WAR 

States did not seek this war, but was driven into it in 
order that we might be saved unspeakable humiliation. 

Those who think by sending telegrams to the Presi- 
dent, begging him to retreat from his patriotic stand 
in this issue, war will be averted, are absolutely wrong. 
The best way to bring on war is to show we are afraid 
of it. The best way to prevent war is to demonstrate 
that we are ready, inspired with a high sense of cour- 
age and honor to meet it, no matter what the sacrifice, 
and to defend the rights of the citizens of our coxmtry 
to the utmost limit. 

There is a statement in the evening paper that the 
Kaiser is weakening somewhat and has written another 
note. What that note may contain we do not know; 
but if he yields to our demand for justice and fair 
play, it will not be because of men like Mr. Bryan and 
other pacifists who are now seeking to weaken the 
President's arm and make his heart jump, but it will 
be because of the patriotic stand the President has 
taken that the flag of our country will be upheld and 
supported. 

It is very appropriate, gentlemen, that we should 
hold a meeting like this in The Union Club of Cleve- 
land, because since this institution, which I love and 
honor beyond expression, was organized, its Club 
house has always been the home and headquarters of 
courageous patriots. If you will look over the list of 
our honorary members you will find adorning that list 
the names of General Garfield, of Major McKinley, of 

124 



UNDER THE SHADOW OF WAR 

General Hayes, of General Grant, of General Sherman 
and of General Sheridan. 

When the war broke out many of the men who 
afterwards became active members of this Club gave 
up everything to the cause of the Union. I can men- 
tion only a few of them. There was General Deve- 
reaux who gave to his country the benefit of all his 
genius in the transportation of men and supplies and 
on whom the tired and anxious Lincoln leaned for 
support. Then there was General Leggett who 
achieved such distinction at the battle of Atlanta, 
and who to the very end of his life, suffered from pain 
and agony as a result of a wound he received in the 
service of his coimtry. Then there was our dearly 
beloved General Bamett, who had a heart as gentle 
as a woman but more courageous than that of a lion. 
Then there was the never to be forgotten Colonel 
James Pickands, that soldier without reproach and 
without fear. Then there was Colonel Haines, and 
Havlock of the American Army, and then our hon- 
ored and lamented General Geo. A. Garretson. 

These gentlemen are not with us tonight; they have 
gone to the realms of eternal peace. They have re- 
ceived the welcome message "Well done good and 
faithful servant enter thou into the joy of thy Lord," 
but their patriotic spirit inspires and dominates us and 
always will while this Club shall exist. 

As far as I can remember and am informed we have 
B.S active members of this Club, of the Civil War, only 

125 



UNDER THE SHADOW OF WAR 

four surviving; there is our own Uncle Daniel Taylor, 
who entered the war as a Quartermaster Sergeant and 
who was appointed by Governor Todd as military 
agent looking after the welfare of the troops of Ohio, 
and during that conflict none were better taken care 
of than the troops of Ohio under Uncle DanieFs care- 
ful supervision. Then there is V. C. Taylor, who was 
a lieutenant in the war. Both of these gentlemen are 
still living and active in business in many ways in this 
city, thank God. And then there are two others : Colonel 
Sullivan and Lieutenant George P. Welch. They are 
veterans in war but youthful in appearance and tem- 
perament for the reason that they both enlisted before 
they had learned to shave. 

In the Spanish- American war the members of this 
Club in large number flocked to the support of the 
Government; there was General Garretson again; 
there was W. C. Hayes, Major; there was our departed 
memxber. Major Burdick, and Capt, Henry Coming, 
and our patriotic surgeon, Geo. W. Crile. 

And now, while I am speaking here, our Cleveland 
Troop A is already in the service of its country and 
many members of the Troop are members of and are 
commanded by active members of this Club, among 
them being some of the foremost, the best and the 
most noble young men of our city. 

It is typical of The Union Club, with a heritage of 
traditions of this character embellishing its pages, that 
it should meet to give evidence of its support to the 

126 



UNDER THE SHADOW OF WAR 

President of the United States in the stand he has 
taken to maintain the dignity and the glory of our 
beloved nation. 

Now, gentlemen, let me say in closing that saving 
only the fear of God, no more exacting, no more exalt- 
ing passion can find lodgment in the human breast 
than the love of country. On her altar the true pat- 
riot lays all other loves, lays comfort and security — 3. 
willing sacrifice. He leaves wife, children and home 
at her call. He drops all other ties only that he may 
hold more closely to the tie that binds him to her. If 
he is an American citizen, whether native or foreign 
bom, the stars and stripes are sacred to him, because 
its silken folds have been dipped in the red blood of 
heroic American men, both native and foreign bom, 
in order that that flag might continue to float in glory 
and honor. 

The bounding life has been freely bartered for pain- 
ful and dreadful death; the career of young men un- 
timely cut off, joyous health and strength have been 
exchanged for pain and sickness; all that that flag 
might continue to float in honor and in glory. 

Are we — the descendants of such patriotic American 
men and women — content that the flag of our country 
shall be trailed in the dust? There is no patriotic 
American anywhere, man or woman, native or other- 
wise, that would answer that question in the affirma- 
tive. 

When Abraham Lincoln took his first trip from 

127 



UNDER THE SHADOW OF WAR 

Springfield to Washington to attend his inaugural, the 
train stopped at a way station, and one of the men, 
representative of some of the feeble minded and de- 
mented citizens that we have with us now, got upon 
the train and said to him with great emotion: "Mr. 
Lincoln, when you get to Washington what are you 
going to do' 7 The President lifted up his long arm 
and reached down and felt of the flag with which his car 
v/as decorated and said: **By the help of the Almighty 
God and by the support of the honest and truthful 
citizens of this country, I propose to uphold and defend 
the Stars and Stripes/* 

Our President is now following his great predecessor. 
He is prepared to uphold and defend the Stars and 
Stripes. And in closing let me say that the best way 
to bring this war on — and God forbid it may ever 
eventuate — is to act the part of cowardice, of fear, 
self-consciousness and indifference. It is the mangy, 
craven cur with his tail between his legs which 
never repels attack, that always gets it. It is the 
emblem of our country, the bird of freedom, the great 
American Eagle, with storm daring pinions and sun 
gazing eye, that leaves the lowering clouds behind and 
below it, that does not fiee from the storm, but takes 
his pleasure and flight into the clear ether above. 



128 



Biographical Sketches 



XVII 

HENRY S. SHERMAN, SOLDIER, 
LAWYER, GENTLEMAN 

Memorial sketchy delivered at a meeting of the Ohio 

State Bar Association at Put-in-Bay^ 

July i8, 1894^ 

TT is curious to note how inadequate all languages 
-*- are at times to accurately express our meaning or 
convey our thoughts. Even the English, the noblest 
of languages, with all its strength, reach, clearness, 
depth and power; with all its wealth of epithet and 
adjective, often fails those who know it best and can 
use it most forcefully. Every one is at times, like the 
infant the great Tennyson sings of — 
" . . . . crying in the night. 
And with no language but a cry." 
Had Shakespeare, for instance, sought to tell one 
bom blind of the tender blush which mantles the petal 
of a rose, he would have searched the mighty store- 
house of his vocabulary in vain for words of apt de- 
scription. Milton, with a power of expression hardly 
less, and with an imagination so strong and daring 
that it took a sure flight, even to celestial heights, could 
not have given to one, who never had a sense of smell, 
even the faintest notion of the subtle fragrance of a 

131 



HENRY S. SHERMAN, 

violet. Were it not for our experiences, language 
would be impotent indeed; without the senses, its wings 
would be closely clipped; and quite often, so far as 
description goes, speech the clearest and most master- 
ful can do no more than aid and refresh the memory, 
that is all. 

No one, therefore, can impart, to those who never 
met the subject of this sketch, any real knowledge of 
what he was. Unless you have been brought within 
his capturing influence; have clasped his hand; been 
brightened by his genial laugh, or soothed by his ready 
sympathy, or aided by his clear judgment, or succored 
by his kindly helpfulness, or covered by his gentle 
charity; unless, in short, you have met him and so 
loved him, no description of him, even the most 
meager, is possible. But, to his friends, and there are 
many here and everywhere, some words of mine may 
freshen cherished recollections of the time when he 
was still with us, beloved and honored, since, as the 
poet tells us — 

"... praising what is lost, 
Makes the remembrance dear.'* 

Henry Stoddard Sherman was bom in Mansfield, 
Ohio, on April 29, 1845. His father was the Honorable 
Chas. T. Sherman, then a practicing lawyer, after- 
ward United States District Judge for the Northern 
District of Ohio. Henry was a scion of the finest 
American stock. He belonged to the best aristoc- 
racy in the world, an aristocracy distinguished not for 

132 



SOLDIER, LAWYER, GENTLEMAN 

wealth or pretentious rank, but for ability and achieve- 
ment. From the time of Roger Sherman down, some 
member of his family has always been conspicuous in 
the service of the state. He never claimed the slight- 
est preference because of his gentle blood; but the dis- 
tinctive qualities of his ancestors — courage, calmness, 
good judgment, loyalty, persistence, integrity, fidelity, 
dignity, patriotism and a proper pride — ^all these were 
his by right of birth. 

Mr. Sherman was so much disinclined to talk about 
himself that, despite our close intimacy for more than 
twenty years, I never obtained from him much infor- 
mation concerning his early life. But, from his gentle 
mother, whose heart broke when he died, and from the 
members of his immediate family, who all leaned upon 
him and looked up to him, I have learned that, as a 
boy even, he gave sure promise of those qualities which 
made his manhood so admirable and his quiet in- 
fluence so controlling. 

He was educated in the public schools of Mansfield 
and fitted for college at the high school there. He 
entered Kenyon College at the early age of sixteen in 
September, 186L It was a trying time. The fate of 
the nation hung trembling in the balance and the 
black clouds of disaster loomed omnious on the hori- 
zon. Fired with the patriotism of his race, he longed 
to shut his books and hasten to the front and there 
do his part in the great struggle for the preservation of 
the government; but the counsels of his elders, dis- 

133 



HENRY S. SHERMAN, 

suading him because of his extreme youth, prevailed. 
For a while he restlessly lingered there. From letters 
written by him at the time, which were filled with 
allusions to the war and almost nothing else, one can 
learn how eager he was to be gone. 

Shortly after he entered, the President of the col- 
lege enlisted in the army of the Union, and at almost 
every meeting of the classes, some were absent who 
had gone to answer to more imperative roll-calls. The 
quiet of the campus was broken by the harsh blare of 
the bugle, by the stem word of command. Professors 
and students alike, immindful of Greek and Latin and 
mathematics, vied with each other in the study of the 
tactics. Sports and athletics were forgotten and the 
boys spent all their spare hours in drill. 

Of course, his going was only a question of time. In 
September, '62, when only seventeen years of age, 
Henry overcame the fond, restraining scruples of his 
friends, and characteristically refusing ail offers of 
official rank which the powerful influences of his rela- 
tives could have procured for him, exchanged the 
scholar's cap and gown for a soldier's uniform and 
enlisted as a private in Company A, 120th Ohio Vol- 
unteer Infantry. His devotion, courage and fidelity 
met with quick rewards. 

He was first a Sergeant, then a Sergeant Major. In 
January, 1863, for gallant conduct on the battle-field, 
he received a commission as Second Lieutenant. In 
the following March he was promoted to be First 

134 



SOLDIER, LAWYER, GENTLEMAN 

Lieutenant of Company I in the same regiment, and 
in April, was appointed its Adjutant. In July, 1863, 
he accepted a position on the staff of his uncle, Gen- 
eral Sherman. He distinguished himself in some of 
the great battles of the war and especially in the Vicks- 
burg campaign. An ofificial report of one of his su- 
perior officers makes special mention of him in these 
words: 

'Though young in years, he has shown himself a 
veteran upon the field." 

After a service in the army of more than a year, at 
the earnest solicitation of his friends, he resigned and 
entered Dartmouth College and graduated with dis- 
tinction in the class of '66. From remarks which he 
has occasionally made to me, I fancy that he some- 
times regretted having left the army and would, per- 
haps, have preferred to have followed permanently a 
military career. I remember once he said that he 
took keen pleasure in the command of men, and again, 
that he especially enjoyed the position of Adjutant. 

Once a member of his regiment spoke to me admir- 
ingly of his calmness and courage when under fire. It 
was in one of the critical battles of the war, the name 
of which I forbear to mention for obvious reasons. 
A charge had been ordered in the face of dreadful 
odds and a superior officer, unable to face the storm 
of shot and shell, dropped his sword, hesitated, and 
then started for the rear. Quick demoralization 
seized the men. Sherman was only eighteen years of 

135 



HENRY S. SHERMAN, 

age and a Sergeant — a boy soldier, nothing more; but 
he became a man, a hero, a leader, in an instant. Hot 
with anger and uttering words of fierce denunciation, 
he caught up the fallen sword and, rushing in front of 
the line, rallied the men and led them again to the 
charge. 'The Squire don't blow any," said the some- 
what illiterate, but enthusiastic, narrator, **but he was 
the bravest yoimgster I ever saw. You wouldn't 
know it, though, to look at him, would you?" 

Shortly afterward, I asked Sherman why he had 
never told me about this thrilling incident. His reply 
was extremely characteristic. He was sitting at his 
desk and looked up at me with his illuminating smile, 
which lightened his face as the glancing sunbeams 
lighten the ripples on the troubled surface of a lake, 
and said: **Well, Jim, the fact is I don't know very 
much about it. I think our friend is inclined to ex- 
aggerate. You must not believe the stories of old 
soldiers. All I really remember is, that we went in 
and came out and that it was mighty hot. The next 
day this officer sent for me, told me that he would 
probably be courtmartialed, and besought me not to 
disgrace him by my testimony. I recall perfectly, 
telling him that my evidence couldn't harm him any, 
for the reason that I remembered little about it. A 
field of battle is a very distracting place, Jim." 

After graduating from college, Mr. Sherman re- 
turned to Mansfield and began the study of law. 
When his father was appointed United States District 

136 



SOLDIER, LAWYER, GENTLEMAN 

Judge, he moved to Cleveland and entered the office 
of the late George Willey. He was admitted to the 
bar in 1868, and shortly afterward was appointed 
Assistant District Attorney, which office he held for 
about nine years. In the meantime, he had become 
a member of the firm of Willey, Terrell & Sherman. 
In 1875, he married Harriette A. Benedict, daughter 
of the late George A. Benedict, the scholarly and dis- 
tinguished editor of The Cleveland Herald, In Septem- 
ber, 1877, his term of office having expired, the firm of 
Sherman & Hoyt was formed. It continued only a 
few months when we were both taken into a partner- 
ship by Mr. Willey, which lasted until early in 1884, 
under the name of Willey, Sherman & Hoyt. The firm 
was then dissolved and the firm of Sherman & Hoyt 
again formed. In 1889, Mr. Dustin was admitted to 
the firm, known thereafter as Sherman, Hoyt & Dustin, 
and it continued until dissolved by the imtimely death 
of the senior partner, in February, 1893. 

For a period, therefore, of almost sixteen years, I 
was associated with him as his partner in business, 
and for more than twenty years we were close and 
devoted friends. It may fairly be claimed then, that 
I have had unequaled opportunities for knowing and 
appreciating his shining qualities; and it is but meager 
praise when I say that, for conspicuous, yet unosten- 
tatious, ability; for wisdom, for clearness of judgment, 
for integrity, for modesty, for loyalty, for charity and 
for magnanimity, I have never known, and, indeed, 

137 



HENRY S. SHERMAN, 

never expect to know, his equal. I have met men who 
had some of these qualities, but he possessed them all. 
As a lawyer he ranked deservedly high. His ad- 
vance was perhaps slow but it was sure. In one 
sense, he was the least, in another the most, ambitious 
of men. He never cared that he, himself, should be in 
any way exalted; he always cared that his work should 
be well done. His cause was everything, himself 
nothing. He was methodical, painstaking and busi- 
ness-like. He rarely fretted or worried, had great 
powers of concentration, a tenacious memory for facts 
and principles, and so worked easily and dispatched 
business with quickness and accuracy. Jury trials 
were som.ewhat distasteful to him; but hearings be- 
fore the courts, especially of last resort, he greatly en- 
joyed, and before the chancellors he won his greatest 
triumphs. He always entered the court-room thorough- 
ly and conscientiously prepared. His briefs were models 
of logical clearness and the result of painstaking re- 
search. His litigated business was confined largely to 
the Federal Courts, with the practice of which he was 
remarkably familiar. As judges listen most readily to 
advocates who assist them in arriving at conclusions, 
Mr. Sherman won their respect and attention to an 
imusual degree. He had the old-fashioned, honorable 
notion that, as an officer of the Court, a lawyer was 
under obligation to be absolutely truthful in all his 
statements. He would no more have deceived or 
misled a judge than he would have struck a woman. 

138 



SOLDIER, LAWYER, GENTLEMAN 

But his professional successes were not confined to 
contests at the bar. As a counselor, he was wise, in- 
telligent and always absolutely reliable. He pos- 
sessed marked ability as a negotiator; he was pre- 
eminent as a settler of disputes. How often have I 
known him to harmonize differences and compromise 
contentions and pacify passions by a few calm, im- 
partial words. He scorned hypocrisy and pretense 
and abhorred all shams. He was a man of absolute 
integrity, and no necessities of his clients ever forced 
him, or indeed, even tempted him, to do an unfair or 
dishonest thing. Without the least ostentation, he 
somehow kept himself — 

* 'Unspotted from the world." 

It was as impossible for him to be false as for a good 
woman to be impure. He was honest and true just as 
naturally as a brook babbles or a bird sings. I re- 
member, once, in the trial of a case in the Court of 
Common Pleas, a client of ours willfully deceived us 
concerning a matter of evidence vital to his defence. 
The fraud v/as disclosed just before the adjournment 
of the court at night. Sherman took him to the office 
and insisted that there was only one honorable course 
to pursue, and that was to publicly announce the fact 
that we had been deceived and state to the court that 
we saw no reason why a verdict should not be directed 
against hJm. The client at first demurred but Sher- 
man was inexorable and insisted that he should either 
employ other lawyers or permit us to make an exact 

139 



HENRY S. SHERMAN, 

statement of the facts. At the opening of the court 
next morning, in a few well chosen words and, strange 
to say, with the full acquiesence of the defendant, Mr. 
Sherman stated to the court that he saw no reason why 
judgment should not be entered for the plaintiff. 
Curiously enough, this same client employed our firm 
in business of importance for years afterward; but he 
never betrayed Mr. Sherman's confidence again. 

With such qualities, it was not surprising that he 
commanded a large and lucrative practice; his clien- 
tage grew year by year. When he was imtimely 
smitten by death, he had not only laboriously clam- 
bered to the mountain's height of accomplishment and 
had beheld, stretching out before him, the promised 
land of professional success; but, more favored than 
Moses, he had also been permitted to enter there and 
to gather golden sheaves. But it is unnecessar}'-, at 
this meeting of the Bar of his native state, to dwell 
longer on his professional achievements; they are 
known to all of you. No words of mine can brighten 
his hard-earned crown of victory, and time, I am sure, 
will not dim its luster. 

Mr. Sherman's humor was spontaneous and natural, 
it was true and genuine, as everything else about him 
was genuine and true. He was the most appreciative 
of men. His criticisms, while generous, were always 
just and helpful. I think it may be truly said of him 
that he never wounded the feelings or jarred the sensi- 
bilities of anyone. He was in a real sense a well edu- 

140 



SOLDIER, LAWYER, GENTLEMAN 

cated and widely read man. His written style was as 
clear as crystal. He possessed to a marked degree the 
faculty of expressing himself with force and brevity, 
and what wonder, he had drunk deep of the waters 
which flow from the — " . . . well of English undefiled." 
His capacious mind was stored with the best thoughts 
of the best writers. I have been constantly surprised 
at his exact and accurate knowledge and at the wide- 
ness of his information as to all matters in the realms 
of history, biography and literature. 

If I should be asked to select a character which he 
more nearly resembled, it would be that of Colonel 
Newcomb, drawn by the master-hand of his favorite 
author. Like the Colonel, Sherman possessed all 
those qualities which go to make up the character of a 
noble gentleman. 

He took a deep interest in all educational matters. 
The establishment of the University School at Cleve- 
land was due in large measure to his untiring and wise 
efforts. While not prominent in public affairs, he 
discharged his duties as a citizen with fidelity and 
discretion and always exerted his influence on the side 
of good government. Although so instant in every 
good deed and work, he was, withal, so modest and 
retiring that it has sometimes seemed to me that we 
hardly knew how large a place he filled xmtil it was 
made forever vacant by the hand of death. But, as I 
reflect upon his useful and successful career, I am not 

141 



HENRY S. SHERMAN, 

surprised that, when he was snatched from our midst, 
a great city mourned for him. 

As I look back over my long and close companion- 
ship with him in all the varied relations of life in which 
we were so intimately connected, I am unable to ex- 
press the feelings which fill my heart. It is impos- 
sible for me to tell how much he was to me. We 
never had a difference, and the consolation of the 
sweet recollection of that constant harmony is due to 
him. 

"But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
Will never come back to me." 

Any sketch of Mr. Sherman would be incomplete 
without some reference to his home life. He was, 
indeed, one of the — 

"... wise, who soar, but never roam, 
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.*' 

It was at his fireside that one saw him at his best. 
Those of us who have met him there will never for- 
get his eager, yet unobtrusive, hospitality, his un- 
conscious grace, his tender affection for wife, for 
children and for friends. 

It is not fitting that, on this public occasion, we 
should open the door of his home. We must not put 
aside the curtain and enter into the holy of holies. 

It is not surprising that children loved him, and 
clustered about him, and clung to him; it is not sur- 
prising that those who met him in closest fellowship 
miss him most; it is not surprising that, when he died, 

142 



SOLDIER, LAWYER, GENTLEMAN 

a whole community sorrowed, and is still sorrowing, 
for— 

"... mightier far 

Than strength of nerve of sinew or the sway 

Of magic, potent over sun and star, 

Is love . . ." 
and Love found a safe and sure and ample abiding 
place in Henry Sherman's generous heart. 

He died suddenly at sea, February 24, 1893, in the 
very maturity of his powers and in the full possession 
of all his faculties. His death was caused by a stroke 
of apoplexy, undoubtedly induced by seasickness. 

Well, the foot-lights have been put out, the curtain 
has fallen, and there is nothing left to us but the con- 
soling and inspiring remembrance of how well he 
acted his part in the Drama of Life. 



143 



Our country demands of us a sacrifice of time, and asks 
of us that we should take trouble to carefully investigate 
and know the truth before we condemn our fellow citizens, 
and public men. If this duty is performed, many a 
sparkling, but bitter epigram will be left unspoken and 
many a sensational paragraph will never explode into 
print. — J. H. H. 



XVIII 

JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, PATRIOT, 
FRIEND OF THE SLAVE 

Speech at Giddings Cluh^ Centenary Anniversary 

Celebration^ Niles, Ohio, Oct. 7, /<?P5, 

of birth of Joshua R. Giddings 

SOONER or later every man settles into his proper 
place and is judged with fairness, approximate. 
If he has been comparatively unknown, his friends 
and neighbors are his judges. If he has been promi- 
nent, the number of his critics is increased in direct 
proportion to the interest he has excited and to the 
importance of the part he has played . The character 
of a public man is seldom accurately measured until 
after his death. 

Greatness and the exercise of power arouse jealousy 
and hatred as well as admiration and love, and it is 
only when time has softened the former and sobered 
the latter that the object of all stands out in clear 
proportion. To a soldier of the Guard, Napoleon 
was a god. To a Prussian patriot, to an embittered 
Englishman, to an exiled noble of the old regime, he 
was a monster of iniquity. We, who have been 
brought neither under the spell of his magnetic, amaz- 
ing, alluring personality; nor have been crushed by 
his inexorable, cruel will, can at once appreciate his 

145 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 

exalted greatness and deplore his licentiousness, his 
duplicity. 

It was not until after the first president of the re- 
public had been laid away to rest, that Mount Vernon 
became a shrine where patriots worshiped; that the 
name of Washington was mentioned only with a 
solemn reverence and that his imposing character 
loomed away up in majestic, solitary grandeur above 
the mists of unjust and adverse criticism. 

It was only when the assassin*s bullet had done its 
fatal work that the world realized that the tenderest, 
truest, most unselfish heart that had ever throbbed in 
human form since that divine one was broken for us all 
on Calvary, had ceased to beat, and that Lincoln, the 
homely, the awkward and imgainly, the quaintly 
humorous, was one of the greatest of earth's few im- 
mortals. 

It was the patient, christian heroism of Garfield's 
suffering and death that brought out his shining 
qualities in clear outline and made eulogists of his 
traducers and friends of his foes. 

Public opinion is slowly formed; but, from its final 
decision, there is small chance of appeal. Judas has 
had his ingenious apologist; but he is still our consum- 
mate and ideal traitor and will so remain to the end. 

The graceful style and subtle and brilliant logic of 
Froude even cannot shake our settled notion that the 
miserable wives of Henry VIII were the victims of his 
brutal lust rather than of a necessary and reluctant 

146 



PATRIOT, FRIEND OF THE SLAVE 

policy. The opinions of the plain people are some- 
what unjust at first, but as years roll by, their con- 
clusions are quite usually calmly and impartially 
reconsidered and their final judgment is almost al- 
ways reasonably accurate; and when once formed, can 
only be modified by newly discovered evidence of the 
most convincing character. 

Fifty years ago Joshua R. Giddings was maligned 
by most, execrated by many and misunderstood by 
nearly all. His prominent friends could have been 
counted on the fingers of one hand. The leading 
statesmen of both parties disagreed with him on most 
points, and the majority of them on all. He was a social 
pariah. Few of the members of Congress would rec- 
ognize him on the street. He was considered a 
fanatic even by his friends; a dangerous disturber of 
the peace, a traitor to the Union, a blood thirsty 
anarchist, a moral leper, by his many enemies. 

He was libeled by the press, formally censured by 
Congress, and slandered even by his old and trusted 
friends. He was supported only by his liberty loving 
constituents on the Western Reserve and some of those 
failed him at the last. He was deprived even of the 
stimulus of gratitude, robbed even of the poor reward of 
thanks; for the shackled negroes, for whom he so 
heroically labored, were too ignorant to be aware of 
his costly sacrifices. If the final judgment had been 
entered then, we should not be here tonight doing 
reverence to his memory; but the final judgment was 

147 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 

not entered fifty years ago. The first conclusion was 
reconsidered. It was reconsidered on many a dread- 
ful battle-field, where men laid down their lives for the 
great principle of equal rights, for which he so strenu- 
ously contended. It was reconsidered when the stain 
on the flag — the shameful, degrading, unspeakable 
stain was washed out by the blood of heroes. It was 
reconsidered when to be an American, meant to be a 
free man and not either a despot or a slave. It was 
reconsidered when the great president became his 
disciple and struck the fetters from the bondsmen and 
laid the foundation of a new government, broad, 
deep, imperishable. 

And what is the final judgment? The world knows 
now that this quiet, determined, self-sacrificing, self- 
educated, modest hero was absolutely right and all the 
rest were unutterably wrong; Webster, the most fam- 
ous of constituional lawyers, was in error; Clay, the 
most brilliant of statesmen and eloquent of orators, 
was mistaken, and plain Joshua R. Giddings, the self- 
tutored lawyer from Ashtabula County, was correct. 
He was correct because he knew the right, and no 
foolish interests, no motives of expediency, no specious 
arguments, could induce him for a single instant to 
compromise with wrong. The Declaration oj Indepen- 
dence was his authority, and his conscience was his 
guide. He was not only a chosen, but a worthy in- 
strument of Almighty God. 

Mr. Giddings was bom a himdred years ago yester- 

148 



PATRIOT, FRIEND OF THE SLAVE 

day. He was the son of a pioneer. His father moved 
from Hartland, Connecticut, to Tioga Point, now 
Athens, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, where his 
famous son was bom, and six weeks afterward to 
Canandaigua, in New York, and, ten years later, to 
Wayne Township, in Ashtabula County, Ohio. Here, 
amid the dangers and the privations of frontier life, 
his character was moulded. He was in the highest 
sense self-educated. He had only a few week's school- 
ing. After the day's arduous labor on the farm was 
over, he taught himself by the flaring light of a pine 
knot. He saw some service in the war of 1812; he 
taught school for a while; he studied law in the office 
of Elisha Whittlesey, of Trumbull County, and was, 
after something over two years, admitted to the bar in 
February, 1821. 

In those days it was the custom for the lawyer in 
whose office a young man had studied to propose his 
name to the bar of the county and secure their consent 
for the candidate to appear before the judges of the 
Supreme Court and be examined for admission Two 
objections were strongly urged against young Gid- 
dings; one, that he had not received a proper educa- 
tion, and the other, that the sphere in which he had 
been reared was not such as to entitle him to associate 
with professional men. Only seventeen out of nine- 
teen members voted in his favor; but the influence of 
Mr. Whittlesey finally procured for him the necessary 
certificate. The names of those objectors are for- 

149 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 

gotten while the name of the humble applicant has 
become immortal. 

He began the practice of the law in Williamsfield, 
but shortly afterward removed to Jefferson, which was 
his home during the remainder of his life. He was 
not an eloquent advocate; but he was an earnest, suc- 
cessful one. He was professionally connected with 
some of the most important cases of the Reserve. He 
was once elected to the State Legislature, and once 
failed of an election to the Ohio Senate. In 1831 he 
formed a partnership with that other grand apostle 
of freedom, Benjamin F. Wade. The business of the 
firm was a lucrative one for those days, and, in 1836 
Giddings, who had made large investments in lands in 
the vicinity of Toledo, retired from practice; but 
financial reverses and ill health shortly followed. He 
spent some months in travel, partially regained his 
health and again resumed the practice of the law at 
Jefferson, forming a partnership with a Mr. Sutliff, 
and, in 1837, he was elected to Congress from the 
famous district which has been worthily represented 
by such distinguished men as Whittlesey, Giddings, 
Garfield, Taylor and Northway. He went to Wash- 
ington in November, 1838, and began a public career 
which extended until the close of the thirty-fifth con- 
gress, an imbroken period of public service of more 
than twenty years. 

At the time he entered the House, the aggressions 
of southern slave-holders were almost unopposed. 

150 



PATRIOT, FRIEND OF THE SLAVE 

When the Government of the United States was 
founded, it was determined that slavery should be 
sectional and freedom national; but slavery was rapid- 
ly becoming national and freedom sectional. Under 
the famous twenty-first rule of the House, all dis- 
cussion of the slavery question was prohibited. By 
express law slavery was permitted in the District of 
Columbia. The disease had smitten the heart of the 
government. 

Not long after Mr. Giddings* arrival, a coffle of 
about sixty slaves, male and female, passed through 
the streets of the city. Those who were able to walk 
were chained together, and a large wagon carried the 
sick and the children. The laggards were publicly 
lashed by a slave-driver on horse back as the sad pro- 
cession took its way up Pennsylvania Avenue, and the 
dreadful spectacle so aroused him that, then and there, 
he began his memorable crusade in behalf of human 
liberty, and he fought the good fight with unfaltering 
courage to the end. 

The time to which I am limited will not permit me 
to enter into details of the great struggle. The story 
is familiar, not only to citizens of this district, but to 
the world. But there are certain characteristics of 
Mr. Giddings* which we must not forget on an oc- 
casion like this: 

First; His unflinching courage. In spite of threats 
of personal violence; in spite of obloquy; in spite of 
the bitterest criticism; he was steadfast to the end. 

151 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 

He was several times publicly threatened on the floor 
of Congress. Once he was censured by the House. 
But he never for an instant faltered. In February, 
1845, Mr. Giddings opposed a bill which had been in- 
troduced in Congress, making appropriations to carry 
out treaty stipulations with the Seminole Indians, 
under which slave holders were to be reimbursed for 
the loss of slaves. Mr. Giddings opposed the bill with 
vigor and force. In his speech, he alluded to the 
claims of certain slave-holders, who, after receiving 
$109,000 as a compensation for their fugitive slaves, 
had been allowed by the government $141,000 more 
as a compensation "for slaves which the females 
would have bom to their masters, had they remained 
in bondage." He insisted that this was substantially 
confiscating for an improper purpose the funds of the 
treasury, in which northern men had an interest. He 
denoimced the bill in unmeasured terms. Mr. Black, 
of Georgia, replied to him in a scurrilous and insulting 
speech, he made a grossly personal attack on the 
character of Mr. Giddings. He accused Mr. Giddings 
of dishonesty, declared that he ought to be in the 
penitentiary and would be sent there at once, if the 
question of his guilt were submitted to the House. 
He claimed that he had violated the law by frank- 
ing a dress to his wife. He wound up by suggesting 
to Mr. Giddings that he had better return to his con- 
stituents and ascertain if he had a character, for he 
certainly had none in Washington or in Congress. 

152 



PATRIOT, FRIEND OF THE SLAVE 

The scene which followed is described in Julian's 
Life of Giddings. After denying all charges of 
dishonor and of official misconduct, Mr. Giddings 
went on to say that he made this statement for the 
benefit of gentlemen — of men who understood the 
decencies of life — and not for that of the member from 
Alabama or his less worthy confrere from Georgia, to 
whom he owed no other respect than that which par- 
limentary law constrained him to observe. In regard 
to the charge of franking a calico dress he knew noth- 
ing, and could only say it was an unmitigated false- 
hood. He said that the member from Georgia was 
less responsible for his conduct than were the respect- 
able members who stood around him while speaking 
and permitted his coarseness and brutality; that, in 
treating of the institution of slavery, he had confined 
himself to matters of fact, which were authenticated 
by official documents and which the member from 
Georgia did not deny; that he represented an intelli- 
gent constituency, who, a few months before, had 
endorsed his action in Congress by a fourth election, 
while Mr. Black had been discredited after one elec- 
tion as unworthy to hold a place among honorable 
men. 

While he was speaking. Black, his face disfigured 
with rage, approached Giddings and, after raising a 
large cane, said to him, "If you repeat those words, 
I will knock you down." Mr. Giddings drew himself 
to his full height and calmly repeated his language. 

153 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 

Then Dawson, of Louisiana, who had threatened 
Giddings on the floor of the House with a bowie on a 
previous occasion, came rushing across the hall, with- 
in a few feet of him, and putting his hand on a pistol 
in his pocket, cocked it so that the click was distinctly 
heard, shouting 'I'll shoot him; by God, Til shoot 
him." 

Mr. Giddings undismayed, unruffled and unintimi- 
dated, with his eye fixed on the speaker, continued his 
address. Without a falter in his voice he went on 
pleading the cause of the oppressed and downtrodden, 
and accused the infuriated southerners, by whom he 
was surrounded, of violating every law, divine and 
human. What wonder is it that a man of such cour- 
age finally succeeded, with cause so just. 

Second: Another striking characteristic of Mr. 
Giddings was his fairness. He fought the battle with- 
in constitutional lines. He did not deny the rights of 
the states originally slave to maintain slavery within 
their borders, since, when they were admitted into the 
Union, their inhabitants were slave owners. What 
he denied was that slavery should be extended. He 
did not claim that the original boundaries of it should 
be narrowed. He disputed the constitutional right 
to extend the curse, that was all; and he denied that 
there was any constitutional warrant for the existence 
of slavery in the District of Columbia. In May, 
1843, in a speech delivered on the floor of the House, 
Mr. Giddings made this statement, which he always 

154 



PATRIOT, FRIEND OF THE SLAVE 

adhered to, "I discard the idea of interfering with the 
institution in any of the states. I admit their power 
to hold slaves independent of Congress or of the federal 
government. Sir, I admit your legal right, imder the 
laws of Virginia, to hold your fellow men in bondage. 
I cannot interfere with that privilege. But while I 
do this, I demand an equal respect for the rights and 
privileges of my state. Ohio has an indisputable 
right to be free and exempt from the support of 
slavery.'* 

In the same speech he asserted that he borrowed his 
abolition sentiments from the author of the first 
abolition tract ever published in the United States, 
and the best ever put forth. He declared, writings of 
this author he had cherished and would continue to do 
so from respect to his memory, if from no other 
motive. *The name of this author," he went on to 
say, "was Thomas Jefferson, and his abolition tract 
was called the Declaration of Independence^ 

In the resolution which he proposed and which was 
adopted at the National Convention of the Republi- 
can Party, on the 17th of June, 1856, he expressly re- 
iterated the same doctrine. He denied the right of 
Congress to extend slavery in any territory of the 
United States. He never attempted to abolish it in 
the states where it constitutionally existed; so that he 
was fair even to his enemies, and although he was 
accused of fanaticism and of a determination to con- 
fiscate the property of others, he never attempted to 

155 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 

interfere with a right, which had become vested under 
the constitution. His whole argument was against 
the nationalization of slavery. Even in the midst of 
the most exciting conflict this country has ever seen, 
he kept himself within the line of organic law and let 
his moderation be known unto all men. 

As a result of his efforts and of the efforts of men 
who followed his leadership, the flag at last is a flag to 
be proud of. It is no longer the symbol of a falsehood , 
but the emblem. Thank God, of a great, immutable, 
indomitable truth. 



156 



XIX 
SENATOR MARCUS ALONZO HANNA 

Extract from memorial resolution. 

Mr. Hanna was born September 25, /<?J7, 

and died February 75, 1^04. 

npHE unique and brilliant career of M. A. Hanna 
-*- entitles him to a place among the great Americans. 
He was a great businessman, a great political leader, a 
great statesman, a great orator, and a great philan- 
thropist. He won conspicuous triumphs in more 
diversified fields of endeavor than any other American. 
Until he was past fifty, he devoted himself to busi- 
ness. His integrity, his courage, his energy, his 
sagacity, and his power not only to plan but to exe- 
cute, made him indeed, widely known and respected, 
but only as a businessman. He then turned his at- 
tention to national politics. He believed that Wil- 
liam McKinley was the fittest standard bearer of his 
party. With a determination characteristically in- 
flexible, and a friendship characteristically loyal, he 
set about the task of procuring the nomination of the 
great Ohioan. No obstacle could stop him. Nothing 
could either change or weaken his purpose. The 
defeat in 1892 did not daunt him. The fact that 
most of the political leaders of national reputation 

157 



SENATOR MARCUS ALONZO HANNA 

were either doubtful of the expediency or possibility 
of the nomination, or were openly opposed to it, 
neither shook his faith nor quenched his courage. 

It is indeed true, that had the beloved and lamented 
McKinley been other than he was, even Hanna could 
not have accomplished the result which proved so 
beneficent to the country; but it is also true, that if 
Hanna had not been what he was — ^loyal, able, in- 
exorable, untiring, sagacious, and above all, masterful, 
the coimtry might have lost an administration, which 
not only added glorious pages to its history, but 
inaugurated policies which must endure because they 
promote not only the prosperity of Americans, but 
the welfare of mankind. 

When the nomination was made, Mr. Hanna, who 
had then convinced people how strong and how wise 
he was, was fittingly selected to lead the Republican 
hosts in the field. His conduct of that critical cam- 
paign was what might have been expected for him; 
it was masterly. And, when the ballots were coimted 
and the victory for good government and for sound 
money was assured, M. A. Hanna, hitherto well known 
only as a businessman, was recognized as the foremost 
political leader of the time. 

He then went to the Senate of the United States. 
Neither his education nor experience had apparently 
fitted him to excel in that distinguished body. He 
had had no training in the craft of statesmanship. He 
could not clothe his thoughts in the silken sentence 

158 



SENATOR MARCUS ALONZO HANNA 

of the phrase-maker; but to everybody's surprise he 
took front rank among his colleagues. He became 
one of the leaders of the Senate, not only in committee 
work, but on the floor, and his speech in favor of the 
Panama route, which changed deliberate conclusions 
previously reached, and his persistent and intelligent 
efforts to restore the American merchant marine, 
made him known, and widely known, as a statesman. 

Shortly after his appointment to the Senate, he 
was elected to that body by a bare majority; but, six 
years later, he was re-elected by the largest vote ever 
given to a United States Senator in the Legislature of 
Ohio. And why was this? The chief reason was that 
in the meantime, this many-sided man had not only 
gained the respect and confidence, and won the ad- 
miration and affection of his countrymen by what he 
had done; but he had become an orator. The hand of 
his indomitable energy had placed another shining 
jewel in the crown of his accomplishment. 

His campaign of 1903 was memorable, not only be- 
cause of the thousands who thronged to hear him, but 
because of the thousands who were convinced by his 
plain, clear logic and his rugged eloquence. 

Business and politics and statesmanship and oratory 
could not exhaust his energy or limit his endeavor. 
No task was too burdensome for him to imdertake, 
or too difficult for him to successfully accomplish. 
He possessed a heart as gentle and generous as his 
mind was strong and sagacious. He gave not only 

159 



SENATOR MARCUS ALONZO HANNA 

his money, but himself, to charity and philanthropic 
purpose. He sought to conciliate and bring into 
harmony Capital and Labor. He himself belonged 
to one class, but he held out his hand to the other, and 
he became the trusted representative of both. As 
was well said of him in eulogy: **He was not only a 
President-maker, but a Peace-maker." His intelli- 
gence excited the admiration of his fellows, his kind- 
ness touched their hearts. 

They loved him not only for what he had done for 
his coimtry and for Ohio, for his prestige, his promi- 
nence and his accomplishments, they loved him for 
his cordial hand-clasp, his genial, kindly smile. 



160 



XX 
MR. CHARLES H. BULKLEY 

FATHER OF CLEVELAND'S PARK SYSTEM 

Extracts from address delivered on April /<5, /po/, in presenting 

a portrait of Mr. Charles H. Bulkley to the 

Chamber of Commerce 

'T^HERE is no need to pronounce any extended 
-■■ eulogy on Mr. Bulkley's character and labors. His 
good deeds are, and will always be, recounted more 
graphically than by any poor words of mine. For, with 
the recurrence of each vernal season. Nature herself, 
with an unequalled eloquence, writes the gracious his- 
tory of him who wooed her and loved her so well, on the 
green vellum of the meadows which he planned and 
planted; her book by far excels all human craft, for 
its pages are adorned and illuminated by blue skies, 
waving trees, by glimpses of running water and by 
living, fragrant flowers, of varied hue. 

You can read the story of his unselfish devotion by 
the unobscured light of God's bright Sun; and then, 
when the Monarch of the day has set, and Nature, 
seemingly tenderly sorrowful for the loss of her faith- 
ful one, has dropped upon the pages her dewy tears; 
these, glistening like gems of "purest ray serene," in 
the beams of Moon and Star, "take up the wondrous 

161 



MR. CHARLES H. BULKLEY 

tale"; reminding all who have eyes to see, what he 
accomplished for the City's beauty, and for the peo- 
ple's joy and good. The evening breezes, rushing 
from far distant places, eager to take share in tribute, 
and choosing waving bough and rustling leaf, as 
proper and appropriate instruments — ^play, in solemn 
but sweet refrain, a fitting requiem to the unselfish 
and devoted dead. 

Now, in discharge of the grateful duty imposed on 
me by those for whom I speak, I present to this 
Chamber the portrait of Mr. Bulkley. It is fitting 
that his picture should hang on walls from which the 
faces of Edwards and Hay and McKinley and Hanna 
and dear General Bamett shine forth; and as I stand 
here, looking upon the * 'counterfeit presentments" of 
such of these good citizens as have gone before, I feel 
like saying with the apostle: **0h! Death, where is thy 
sting: Oh! Grave, where is thy victory?", for these are 
not really dead. Their living, inspiring influence is 
still as powerful as ever, compelling us who remain, to 
a higher devotion and a more exalted self-sacrifice for 
the City's weal. 



162 



Cleveland^ and the Western Reserve 



// is easy to find fault. It is hard to perform. An- 
imadversion is not accomplishment. It is a simple thing 
to break a vase: it is a difficult thing to make it. — J. H. H. 



XXI 
THE WESTERN RESERVE 

An address delivered before The Western Reserve Pioneers' 

Association at Solon^ Ohio, August 28, i8g5, and 

a Toast responded to at New England 

Society Dinner held in Cincinnati, 

December 21, 189S. 

npHE Western Reserve is the child of Connecticut, 
-*• but she is the grandchild of Massachusetts. Her 
early settlers left their peaceful homes in the nutmeg 
state and pushed their way through the tangled 
wilderness to found a new Connecticut on the shores 
of Lake Erie, not quite a century ago; but, a hundred 
and fifty years before they started on their memorable 
journey, their own ancestors had, in like fashion and 
moved by the same enterprising, colonizing spirit, cut 
loose from Massachusetts and settled in Hartford and 
New Haven. 

The Western Reserve might almost be said to be a 
bit of New England picked up bodily from the shores 
of the Atlantic and dropped down on the border of 
the Great Lake. Puritan names are common among 
us — Otis, Allen, Andrews, Foote, Akins, Newberry, 
Champion, Hayes, Boardman and a score of others 
come to me as I speak. We have as one of our honored 

165 



THE WESTERN RESERVE 

citizens in Cleveland, a gentleman who is the direct 
descendant of one of the first directors of the Land 
Company — Samuel Mather, Jr. I have no doubt 
that this director was of the family of the Reverend 
Cotton Mather, who lived his godly life, and piously 
himg witches, and persecuted and flogged us poor 
Baptists, and slit the noses and ears of Quakers in 
the "Good, old, colony days." The traditions of 
most of the older families on the Reserve run back 
almost, if not quite, to Plymouth Rock. 

The civilization of the Reserve, is distinctive. It 
has flourished like a transplanted tree, with roots 
indeed firmly imbedded deep down in a fruitful and 
congenial soil, so that the growth has been sturdy and 
imposing, but with leaves somehow differing from the 
foliage all about. 

Most of us who were bom on the Reserve and have 
reached middle age have recollections of a Sabbath not 
made for man. These recollections are cherished and 
hallowed now, because they, who enforced the stem 
and ungrateful observance from a sense of duty and 
not from any lack of love for us, have either lived their 
saintly lives and crossed the dark and rushing stream 
or are just now tottering on its brink. Many of us 
never enter a theatre without a qualm of conscience. 
The stifling fumes from the burning brimstone of the 
dreadful lake of eternal fire still seem to linger in our 
nostrils, and we tingle yet in those portions of our 
anatomies which nature has wisely, but unfortunately 

166 



THE WESTERN RESERVE 

so moulded as to invite the heavy hand of discipline. 
A distinguished New England author — himself a 
descendant of the Puritans — has told us how, admir- 
ing their courage and devotion, but condemning their 
prejudice and bigotry, he never closed his eyes at 
night without thanking Almighty God for his Puritan 
ancestors; but, also, that he never failed to thank him 
that he was one day farther removed from those 
ancestors. 

Whether we would say "Amen" to such a prayer or 
not, it is none the less true that time has effaced the 
austerities of the Puritan character, and, in the proc- 
ess, has somehow brought out their nobler traits in 
more striking outline and has made them shine the 
more brilliantly, as one, by polishing a beam of oak, 
rubs off unsightly irregularities and brings out in 
sharp and clear relief the beauties of its sound and 
rugged heart. 

The Puritan element in our national life is like the 
"little leaven which leaveneth the whole lump." The 
distinctive qualities of the Puritans were: honesty, 
patriotism, courage and respect for law, coupled with 
an ineradicable love of liberty. All these inestimable 
qualities were possessed by the pioneers of the West- 
ern Reserve, and. Thank God, are yet to be dis- 
covered in their descendants. 

What great results from little causes spring. If it 
had not been for a gold ring, the whole destiny of 
northeastern Ohio might have been different. When 

167 



THE WESTERN RESERVE 

Cromwell, the great protector, died, the shrewd Con- 
necticut colonists thought it expedient to send their 
honored Governor Winthrop to make their peace 
with the merry monarch Charles II, whose character 
you will remember, was summed up in the famous 
lines, which the Earl of Rochester wrote on the door 
of the royal bed-chamber — 

"Here lies our sovereign lord, the king , 
Whose word no man relies on; 
He never says a foolish thing, 
Nor ever does a wise one/' 

Before proceeding to the business of his mission, 
Winthrop showed to Charles a massive gold ring 
which Charles I had given to his (Winthrop's) father 
as a reward for loyalty and devotion. The king's 
heart was so moved by the sight that he straightway 
put his hand and the great seal of the famous 
charter which conferred a larger liberty upon the 
Connecticut colony and gave to her with a royal 
mimificence, all the land lying between the same 
parallels of latitude as those of Connecticut and ex* 
tending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

You will remember how, when James II mounted 
the throne and sent the imperious Andros, the royal 
governor, with an armed force to demand and compel 
the surrender of the precious parchment, the patri- 
otic Captain Wadsworth snatched the charter from 
the table on which it was lying in the Connecticut 
Assembly Chamber, right from imder the nose of the 

168 



THE WESTERN RESERVE 

august official, and shielded by the darkness, leaped 
through an open window, and hid the charter in the 
hollow of the since celebrated oak. 

It was under this charter, so preserved, that Con- 
necticut made her claim to the western domain. It 
was because of this muniment of title, that when the 
states ceded their rights in the great northwest to the 
general government, Connecticut was permitted to 
retain as her own the three millions and more acres of 
the Western Reserve. 

Five himdred thousands of acres she set aside as 
fire lands to reimburse those whose homes had been 
destroyed in the raids of the traitor Benedict Arnold. 
The remainder, something over twenty-five hundred 
thousand acres, she sold to the Connecticut Land 
Company for twelve hundred thousand dollars, and 
invested the proceeds as a school fund, which she still 
retains. The first Board of Directors of the Con- 
necticut Land Company, on the 12th day of May, 
1796, appointed General Moses Cleaveland as its 
representative, to survey and occupy the country. 

His expedition started from Schenectady, New 
York, in June of that year and, after many trials and 
tribulations, arrived, on the fourth day of July, 1796, 
at the mouth of Conneaut Creek. They christened 
the place Port of Independence, and straightway 
flung the American flag to the breeze. On the after- 
noon of that day the first banquet was held in the 
Western Reserve. In what startling contrast is this 

169 



THE WESTERN RESERVE 

one tonight. There were no engraved menus, no 
shining glass, no blooming flowers, no sparkling wines. 
The rustic table was made of rough-hewn logs; the 
food was baked pork and beans; the drink, water and 
whiskey. There was no music, except when those 
adventurous pilgrims raised their voices, made hoarse 
by exposure, in patriotic songs. From behind the 
gnarled trunks of the monarchs of the forest primeval, 
the stealthy Indians looked on and wondered. The 
proceedings were interrupted by the startling cry of 
the panther and the scream of the wild-cat. They 
had a list of toasts which ran as follows: 

1. The President of the United States. 

2. The State of New Connecticut. 

3. The Connecticut Land Company. 

4. May the Port of Independence and the fifty 
sons and daughters who have entered it this 
day be successful and prosperous. 

5. May these sons and daughters multiply in 
sixteen years sixteen times fifty. 

6. May every person have his bowsprit trimmed 
and ready to enter every port that opens. 

It was then that the movement for Greater Cleve- 
land was first inaugurated. On the 22nd day of July 
of the same year. General Cleaveland and a part of 
his followers, after numerous vicissitudes and perils, 
landed on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, and in the 
next October, the future city w^as named ''Cleaveland" 
in honor of the leader of the expedition. The name 

170 



THE WESTERN RESERVE 

was then spelled C-1-e-a-v-e-l-a-n-d, and it was not 
until 1830, when the Cleveland Advertiser was 
first published, that the economic editor showed his 
contempt for orthography and his belief in the pho- 
netic method by dropping the letter "a," so as to 
make his heading fit the form. Such was the be- 
girming of the Western Reserve and its capital city. 

Time forbids that I should recount in detail the 
thrilling story of the gallant struggles of the pioneers. 
You who are listening to me know how marvelous has 
been the growth of the Western Reserve since the 
time of this small commencement. We have already 
a development far beyond the dreams of the early 
settlers, and the future is bright before us. Our 
fathers and mothers endured sickness and dangers 
and discomforts, the story of which would fill volumes, 
in order to make possible the prosperity and comfort 
in which we share,. 

Let me relate a single incident, which shows their 
respect for the law, and at the same time, how they 
sought to temper the stern decrees of justice with a 
little mercy. In the winter of 1812, John O'Mick, an 
Indian, murdered two white men. Sheriff Baldwin, 
the first sheriff of Cuyahoga County, which had only 
lately been organized, arrested O'Mick for the crime. 
The county had no jail, and Major Carter took charge 
of the prisoner and chained him to a rafter in the garret 
of his log house, which stood near where the Western 
J^eserve Building now stands. The Indians were 

171 



THE WESTERN RESERVE 

greatly excited at this arrest and threatened to destroy 
the little settlement and rescue the prisoner; but their 
threats failed to frighten the gallant major and the 
brave settlers, or even to hasten the orderly course of 
judicial proceedings. 

In April of that year O'Mick was tried before the 
county court and found guilty and sentenced to be 
hanged on the 26th day of June. It was expected 
that there would be an uprising of the Indians and 
that O'Mick would be rescued, and every man in the 
settlement armed himself with his rifle and rallied 
to the support of lawful authority. A scaffold was 
erected on the Public Square, O'Mick was placed in a 
wagon, which had been repainted for the occasion, and 
the sheriff, clothed in tarnished regimentals, marched 
at the head of the procession. It was a critical 
moment. On the one side were arrayed hundreds of 
ruthless, savage redmen, and on the other a handful 
of determined settlers ready to sell their lives, if need 
be, in order that the law's decree might be exactly 
carried out. The whole future of the Western Reserve 
himg trembling in the balance on that pleasant sum- 
mer afternoon. 

For the first time within her borders. Anarchy 
entered into a conflict with Law, and, thanks to the 
gallant pioneers. Law came out victorious. If their 
courage had faltered, if their nerves had failed them, 
a bloody massacre would have resulted. When the 
procession arrived at the scaffold, the noose was ad- 

172 



THE WESTERN RESERVE 

justed; but, just as the sheriff was about to let the 
drop fall, O'Mick, overcome by terror, closely clutched 
one of the side-posts of the gallows with a desperate 
grip, which the sheriff could not loosen. After some 
parleying. Major Carter humanely gave him a pint of 
whiskey. This is the first recorded instance of the 
administration of an anaesthetic on the Reserve. 
Truth compels us to admit, however, that the same 
anaesthetic had often been previously privately used. 

The sheriff again made ready, but once more 
O'Mick grasped the side-post. One more pint of the 
benumbing fluid was forthcoming — our fathers were 
determined that the culprit should die; but they were 
generously willing that he should die as happy as 
possible, and while he was quaffing his last drink, he 
was swung off into eternity, and the stern demands of 
justice were at last complied with. As we remember 
that a distillery was early erected on the shores of the 
Cuyahoga, one is forced to the conclusion that the bad 
Indian was transferred from one land of spirits to 
another. But the incident is significant as showing 
that threats of violence had no terrors for the stem, 
indomitable pioneers, and that danger could not 
deter them from seeing to it that justice was properly 
vindicated, and that crime was punished. 

I have said that courage, patriotism, a regard for 
law and order, coupled with an ineradicable love of 
liberty, were distinguished characteristics of the pio- 
neers and their descendants. In proof of this one 

173 



THE WESTERN RESERVE 

needs only to mention the names of Wade and Gid- 
dings — those conspicuous sons of the Western Re- 
serve — ^those apostles of human liberty. 

The trembling slaves, fleeing from their harsh task- 
masters, felt their hearts beat high with hope as soon as 
they reached the limits of the liberty loving Western 
Reserve. There they were sure of succor and of 
assistance. Every bam was an asylum, every house 
was a temple of freedom. When, at last, Sumter was 
fired on and the life of the Government was imperiled, 
how eagerly did the sons of the W^estem Reserve rally 
to the support of the Union, and. Thank God, the 
patriotic fiaine burned as brightly in every other sec- 
tion of the state. The list of heroes is too long to 
mention in the short limits of a speech like this. 

The citizens of the Reserve are in close daily con- 
tact with quiet heroes, whose names will adorn the 
pages of this coimtry's history. There are Casement, 
and Barber, and Elwell, and Whitbeck, and Leggett, 
and Bamett, and Pickands, and McAllister, and 
Abbott, and Beatty, and hundreds of others yet liv- 
ing; and McPherson, and Garfield, and Hayes, and 
Gilmore and Opdyck and Crane, and Creighton, and 
Clark, and a host who have gone before; the memories 
of whom will be cherished in the recollection of their 
grateful coimtrymen long after the marble has 
crumbled into dust on which the simple story of their 
gallant deeds is chiselled. But the men of the Reserve 
could not monopolize its patriotism. One instinct- 

174 



THE WESTERN RESERVE 

ively uncovers as one remembers the good women who 
ministered to the sufferings and added to the comforts 
of the boys in blue. 

We citizens, not only of the Reserve, but of the 
State, have truly a goodly heritage, rich not alone in 
broad and fertile acres, in fruitful vineyards, in pros- 
perous cities and villages, in pleasant farms and shin- 
ing waters, but richer far in patriotism, in truth, in 
devotion. We owe the commonwealth an inheritance 
tax, not payable in money, but in courage, self-sacri- 
fice, time, and attention. 

Emerson speaks truly when he says, "Nothing 
great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.'* The 
lessons taught us by the lives and examples of our 
ancestors must not be forgotten. The sacred trusts 
they have committed to us must be duly and patri- 
otically administered. 



175 



XXII 
THE HOMES OF CLEVELAND 

Response to toast at Chamber of Commerce Banquet 
Cleveland, OhiOy April 77, 1894. 

MORE than eighteen centuries ago the most terrible 
of all volcanoes erupted. With sulphurous smoke 
and lurid flames and clouds of blistering ashes, belched 
forth rivers of molten lava, from the seething, boiling 
fountains of fire forever raging in the center of the 
earth. Below, on the plain, stood a populous city, 
with imposing walls and lofty towers; with gorgeous 
temples, formidable citadels, teeming market places 
and spacious theatres; with joyous homes rich in 
treasures of art and made beautiful by the skill of 
painter and of sculptor. 

Down the mountain sides rushed the dreadful cur- 
rents, like destroying armies. They scaled the walls 
and caught the sentries stationed there, whose discip- 
lined valor was impotent against their attack, and 
shackled them forever with burning chains; they 
clutched the fleeing citizens in their fiery grasp; they 
overwhelmed temples and citadels and towers and 
buildings. From the ghastly skies fell showers of 
burning ashes, entombing all, fathoms deep in one 
common, sweltering, smoking grave. The City dis- 

177 



THE HOMES OF CLEVELAND 

appeared in a night — ^buried. Later, vineyards flour- 
ished and bore their purple clusters; mulberry trees 
thrived and blossomed, over its forgotten ruins. 

Centuries afterward, eager hands opened the 
spacious tomb. A by-gone civilization has been 
exposed to us. From Pompeii uncovered we have 
learned more of the manners, customs, the morals, the 
habits, the characteristics of the past than from all the 
histories that ever were written. These lessons have 
been most graphically taught, most eloquently told, 
not by temple or senate house, not by market place or 
forum, not by theatre or citadel; but by the private 
homes of the people. 

What is true of Pompeii dead, is true of Cleveland 
living. If you wish to know us as we really are, you 
must not only survey our empire, you must also behold 
our homes. The homes of Cleveland are in many re- 
spects distinctive. In the first place they are religious 
homes. The pioneer settlers of the Western Reserve 
were reverent men. They, and their fathers before 
them, led sober, industrious lives. They pushed their 
way into the then unknown west and braved the 
dangers of its forests and overcame the obstacles in 
their paths with the calm courage which only a firm 
reliance on an over-ruling power inspires. They came 
mostly from that God-fearing state, Connecticut, called 
then and now (except when we happen to be grating 
a wooden nutmeg) the "land of steady habits." 

The Reverend Thomas Hooker, in 1636, with 

178 



THE HOMES OF CLEVELAND 

almost his entire congregation, left Cambridge, Mass., 
and settled on the green and fertile banks of the placid 
Connecticut. The reason for this secession, history- 
does not fully explain. Very likely it was because the 
Reverend Mr. Hooker and the Reverend John Cotton 
could not agree on the number of angels who could 
stand on the point of a needle, or differed on some 
other weighty theological question; but of one thing 
we are sure — they made the move prayerfully, and 
because they believed that the Lord directed them; 
as judging by results, he surely did. In recognition 
of their confidence in a brooding Providence, the early 
settlers of Connecticut adopted as their motto "Qui 
transtulit sustinet" — "He, who transplanted, still 
sustains." And this is even now the motto of their 
state. 

When the descendants of the good Mr. Hooker and 
his followers came out here, they were nerved and 
supported by the same unquestioning faith. What 
Bismarck said of his Germans might have been said of 
them — "They fear God, and nothing else." The 
homes they built on the shores of Lake Erie were 
built with pious, reverent hands. One could have 
found there, 

"Pure religion breathing household laws." 

They not only lighted fires on hearthstones, but 
on family altars as well, and those fires are still burn- 
ing, for, while their children and their children's 
children, in the larger liberty of these later years, have 

179 



THE HOMES OF CLEVELAND 

outgrown their stem and narrow creeds, they still hold 
fast to the faith of their fathers. And so the spires of 
many churches reach upward into the blue. Hospitals, 
day nurseries, homes for the aged, asylums for chil- 
dren and the afflicted, and retreats for the erring are 
generously maintained among us. While, in private, 
hidden channels, charitable streams fed by the clear 
fountains of christian love perennially flow. 

The standard of the moral life of Cleveland has 
always been high. Her rich and prominent citizens 
have been men of exemplary lives and have left be- 
hind, to their descendants, unblemished records as 
their best bequests. Stone, Witt, Perkins, Mather, 
Chisholm, Andrews, Ranney, Hickox, Chamberlain, 
Foote, Wade, Woods, Williamson and hundreds of 
others, who have passed away, to say nothing of the 
honored few who still linger amongst us, were constant 
in every good deed and work. They concerned them- 
selves not only with Cleveland's material growth, but 
also with her moral growth. The means which they 
accumulated and themselves generously distributed 
are and will be, still employed by their descendants in 
active benevolences and in gentle charities. The 
wealth of Cleveland has been largely consecrated. 

Her citizens have not been immindful of the divine 
definition of ''pure religion and undefiled," which the 
poet Longfellow has put into immortal verse — 
"Whatsoever thing thou doest to the least of 
mine and lowest, That thou doest unto me.'* 

180 



THE HOMES OF CLEVELAND 

Where charities abound, the home life of the people is 
in the best sense, religious. 

The homes of Cleveland are homes of intelligence 
and culture. When the log cabins began to cluster 
on the shores of the "crooked river" — the Cuyahoga — 
the log school-house was soon built. On the rude 
table about which the family gathered, rested not only 
the Bible, but the school-book as well — and what 
wonder, when the influences which surrounded our 
early settlers in the place from which they came, are 
considered. Connecticut dedicated a large portion 
of her western domain to the establishment of a school 
fund. Five hundred thousand acres were set aside to 
reimburse her citizens for patriotic losses, and the pro- 
ceeds received from the sale of the far larger remainder 
were used exclusively for educational purposes, and, so, 
when her children came out here, they straightway 
lighted the lamp of learning. It burned feebly at 
first, no doubt, for the oil was dear and the wick poor, 
and the strong blasts of the wilderness made it flicker 
and sometimes almost snuffed it out; but our fathers 
sheltered it and filled it again and again, our mothers 
trimmed it and it has burned brighter and brighter 
ever since, until now its clear and steady beams shed 
their radiance far beyond the limits of the city. 

A good education is within the reach of the poorest 
in Cleveland. The tree of knowledge has grown 
mightily here, and none are forbidden to eat of its fruit. 
If any yoimg man or young woman in Cleveland is 

181 



THE HOMES OF CLEVELAND 

ignorant, it is a disgrace, not a misfortune; it is for 
lack of inclination, not of opportunity. I know of 
few cities where more and better institutions of learn- 
ing and culture flourish than in Cleveland; and they 
have all been established or enriched by the generous 
gifts of Clevelanders, dead and living, and are, there- 
fore, indicative of the intelligence of the home life of 
Cleveland. The University, with its colleges for men 
and women, its schools of medicine, of art, and of law; 
the Case School of Applied Science; the University 
School, our libraries, and those citadels of freedom, 
the public schools, bear witness to the active intel- 
lectual life of this city. They are imposing monu- 
ments to the culture and refinement of her homes. 

It is not surprising that we have living among us 
teachers and professors of high attainments and wide 
reputation; it is not surprising that the city has pro- 
duced one of the foremost electricians of the age;* and 
that a quiet astronomer** has here found congenial 
opportunities for making observations and calcula- 
tions, the fame of which has made Cleveland known 
throughout the scientific world. It is not surprising 
that a polished and refined society centers here and 
that the gracious hospitality of Cleveland homes is so 
highly appreciated. 

There is another distinction about Cleveland 
hemes — nearly every citizen, no matter how narrow 
his means, owns one. When the early settlers jour- 

♦Mr. Charles F. Brush **Mr. Ambrose Swasey 

182 



THE HOMES OF CLEVELAND 

neyed for ninety arduous days and perilous nights from 
Connecticut to the Western Reserve, it was because 
they had bought land from the Connecticut Land 
Company and came out to occupy it and build their 
homes upon it. The home instinct is still strong 
among their descendants. 

If you drive up our broad avenues and see only the 
houses of the wealthy, though their elegance and 
beauty will delight you, you will get even so, but an 
imperfect notion of the real home life of Cleveland. 
On cross street and in suburb, everywhere can be 
found thousands of thrifty, comfortable homes, each 
with its plat of groimd and blooming garden where 
the toilers of the city contentedly dwell. A large 
majority of Cleveland's laborers are landed proprie- 
tors. She is a city of freeholders, her working classes 
are not crowded into imhealthy tenements. There is 
nothing which so insures the permanent prosperity 
and solid growth of a city as a general ownership of 
homes by its plain people. When a man sits under his 
own *Vine and fig-tree," he becomes in the best sense 
conservative; the "glittering generalities" of the 
demagogue cease to allure him; he has a substantial 
interest at stake. 

Cleveland owes much to her press, to her schools, 
to her libraries; much to her railroads and her vessels; 
much to her merchants and to her manufacturers; but 
she is also deeply indebted to those who have platted 
her broad acres, who have subdivided her lands and 

183 



THE HOMES OF CLEVELAND 

made it possible for her humblest citizen, were he 
sober and industrious, to acquire that dear possession, 
a home, "on long time and easy payments." The 
allotment has been no mean factor in Cleveland's ad- 
vancement. It is because of her homes that Cleve- 
land's bow of promise shines clear and brilliant in her 
horizon. The homes of Cleveland are the broad 
foundations on which the structure of her greatness 
has been, and will be built, and at the same time, they 
are her best defences. Because of them her citizens 
can be relied on, not only to promote her welfare, but 
to protect and to guard her interests when threatened 
or imperiled. What was it, "in the brave days of 
old," that strengthened the mighty heart and nerved 
the strong arm of bold Horatius, so that with two 
others, he valiantly kept the bridge against a 
thousand foes? The poet tells us, 

"... he saw on Palatinus the white porch of 
his home." 



184 



XXIII 



CENTENNIAL PREPARATIONS 

Speech delivered at Citizens' Mass Meeting at Music Hally 

Cleveland^ Thursday ^ December 26^ i^95i in 

behalf of the Centennial Exposition. 

ON the 22nd day of next July, one hundred years 
will have emptied themselves into the ocean of the 
past since Moses Cleaveland and his companions in 
courageous enterprise landed on the shores of the 
"crooked river" and founded this capital city of the 
Western Reserve. So great an event is surely worthy 
of an appropriate celebration. The birth year of the 
Forest City should not be forgotten, at any rate, by 
her own sons and daughters. Like that of a child, 
the birth of Cleveland was the result of protracted, 
painful labor. Her early settlers endured nipping 
privation, braved appalling dangers, bore sufferings 
the most intense. They were pinched by hunger, 
threatened by savages; weakened by disease. Un- 
flinchingly, they met death itself, in order to make 
possible the comfort and prosperity in which we share. 
The story of their heroic deeds fills volumes. They 
had little, but gave much, because they gave all. 

I have said that the centennial celebration should 
be appropriate, and what more appropriate one can 

185 



CENTENNIAL PREPARATIONS 

be devised than an exposition of the city's varied 
products? One shipyard like the Globe or the Cleve- 
land; one bridge works like the King; one manufactory 
of hoisting and conveying machinery like the Brown, 
the McMyler or the Excelsior; one plant like that of 
The Cleveland Rolling Mill Company; one plate mill 
like the Otis; one wire mill like the American; one nail 
works like the HP or the Baackes; one refinery like the 
Standard; one forge like the City; one single manu- 
factory out of himdreds of others that I have no 
time to mention, speaks more eloquently and ade- 
quately of the foresight and sagacity of those who 
located this city, just where the ore from the north of 
us and the coal from the south of us meet in most 
profitable union, than can the most gifted orator or 
the most impassioned poet. 

Of course, it may be said, that at the time when 
Cleveland was located, the coal-fields of Pennsylvania 
and Ohio and the iron ore deposits of the Lake Superior 
region were not discovered, and that therefore, our 
fathers builded better than they knew. This is un- 
doubtedly true, and yet it is praise enough to say of 
them, that with a long line of lake front to select from, 
they selected this place as the most appropriate spot 
for the future metropolis; and their expectations have 
been more than realized. 

*'Si monumentum requiris circumspice" — "If you 
seek his monument, look aroimd you," was the 
epitaph chiselled by Sir Christopher Wren the great 

186 



CENTENNIAL PREPARATIONS 

architect, in the wall of St. Paul's Cathedral. If you 
are looking for an appropriate monument to the city's 
founders, don't visit the Public Square only and gaze 
upon the statue of Moses Cleveland or of Cleveland's 
Moses; but look around you. In the city's manufac- 
turing and commercial enterprises can be found their 
most fitting memorial. The tall chimneys of the mills 
wave banners of flame in their honor, and the tireless 
machinery himis an unending 'paean' in their praise. 

In a hundred years Cleveland has grown from noth- 
ing to a metropolitan city with a population of more 
than 330,000. Few of the citizens of Cleveland realize 
how great she really is, how varied are her interests 
and how wide spreading is her influence. She is the 
result of a fortunate location and of individual push 
and enterprise. How much greater she might have 
been with more concerted effort on the part of her 
citizens, no one can tell. Like Topsy, she seems to 
have "just growed." 

I am indebted for the significant figures * which I 
am now going to give to you, to Mr. Elliott the pains- 
taking and able Secretary of the Centennial Com- 
mission, and to the census of 1890, compiled under the 
intelligent supervision of our distinguished fellow- 
townsman, Mr. Porter. Cleveland has in the neigh- 
borhood of 2,000 manufactories, employing something 
over 50,000 employes. Of these 2,000 manufactories. 



♦These figures, long since surpassed, afford a record of the city's accomplish- 
ment at the year of its centennial. Ed. 

187 



CENTENNIAL PREPARATIONS 

about 1,600 make articles which are used largely in 
home consumption and so do not, perhaps, bring 
capital from other quarters into the city; but the re- 
mainder, about 400, manufacture articles which are 
sold in all parts of the habitable globe, and so bring 
capital from outside the city borders, which is spent 
here and invested here. These 400 manufactories 
alone employ something Uke 48,000 workers; they 
make something like 20,000 specific articles of manu- 
facture which are shipped beyond the limits of the 
city, and all the factories together make, it is esti- 
mated, at least 100,000 articles which are used both 
here and elsewhere. As I have said, the manufac- 
turing interests of the city employ something like 
52,000 people; in jobbing and mercantile pursuits 
about 20,000 are employed; the marine interests, 
including the drydocks, employ about 4,500 more, 
and in the civic pursuits about 5,000 are engaged; 
making a grand sum total, of those who are here 
engaged in what Mr. Porter calls the gainful occupa- 
tion, of something over 80,000. The population of 
the city being about 330,000, the proportion of work- 
ers to inhabitants is as one to four. There are very 
few drones in the Forest City. In Pittsburgh, great 
as its manufacturing interests are, the proportion is as 
one to six. In Philadelphia, which is the greatest 
manufacturing city in the United States, the propor- 
tion is as one to seven. In New York the proportion 
is about one to eight, and in St. Louis about as one to 

188 



CENTENNIAL PREPARATIONS 

seven. So that relatively to her population, Cleve- 
land leads the list. 

It is impossible, in the short limits of a speech like 
this, to give you any adequate notion of how widely 
the products of our manufactories are scattered over 
the globe. I have read the Times in London by the 
light of Cleveland oil. The enemies of England in the 
far comers of the globe have been shot down by bul- 
lets fired from a gun developed and owned by Cleve- 
land capitalists. The dense fog of London is even 
now pierced by the radiant beams of an electric light 
invented by a distinguished citizen of Cleveland and 
first manufactured here, and the same light illumines 
the brilliant boulevards of Paris and Vienna and 
glistens on the icy surface of the Neva. 

The rivet-holes in the plating of the monster war- 
ships of the navies of the world have been pierced by 
twist drills manufactured here; and the perspiring 
and patient Nubian, cultivating the lands made 
fertile by the overflow of the waters of the majestic 
Nile, wearies his jaws and makes his breath fragrant 
by the constant chewing of Cleveland gum. 

The secrets of the brilliant constellations of far 
distant skies are discovered by the aid of Cleveland 
telescopes, and a modest astronomer, resident here, 
has made the name of Cleveland known wherever 
learned men 

"look through Nature up to Nature's God." 

Wherever the glaring beams of the electric light 

189 



CENTENNIAL PREPARATIONS 

penetrate, carbons manufactured in Cleveland are 
used. Garments, in remote places of the earth, are 
made on Cleveland sewing machines. Tramways are 
run by Cleveland cable machinery and Cleveland 
electric motors. 

Houses in distant localities are built with Cleveland 
tools, made secure by Cleveland wire nails and bolts, 
fitted with Cleveland hardware, and are made beauti- 
ful by Cleveland paint. Their hospitable doors swing- 
open on Cleveland hinges and are closed against in- 
truders by Cleveland springs; and the food served in 
them is made palatable by Cleveland salt, which never 
loses its savor; and cooking is made possible in the 
torrid regions of the equator by the use of Cleveland 
oil and vapor stoves. Vessels are imloaded in distant 
harbors by Cleveland hoisting machinery. The 
nervous systems of far-away barbarians are paralyzed 
with electric shocks caused by the fierce energy cre- 
ated by Cleveland dynamos. Cleveland ships not 
only carry the commerce of the Great Lakes, but plow 
the restless waters of the mighty ocean. Cleveland 
bridges span distant rivers. Messages are flashed 
hundreds of miles over Cleveland wires; and trains, 
away west and south of us rush onward over Cleveland 
rails. All this has been accomplished in a short 100 
years. 

It is not proposed that the exposition to be held 
next year shall do more than simply exhibit Cleve- 
land's progress It is proposed by the intelli- 

190 



CENTENNIAL PREPARATIONS 

gent gentlemen, members of the Exposition Com- 
mittee, that an auditorium * during the centennial 
year shall be provided, worthy of the city. 

A soldier in the trenches before Vicksburg received 
a bottle of brandy peaches from his grandmother. 
He said he did not care much about the fruit, but no 
criticism could be made on the spirit in which it was 
sent. 

If any of you gentlemen are not in favor of this 
project, surely no criticism can be offered on the 
spirit which has moved these patriotic and disinter- 
ested citizens to bring forward this necessary project. 

••The Auditorium, long delayed was finally built, and opened to the public under 
the mayoralty of Frederick Kohler in May, 1922. Ed. 



191 



XXIV 
PROSPECT AND RETROSPECT 

Speech delivered at Centennial Banquet^ 

Hollenden Hotels Cleveland^ OhiOy 

Sept. lothy 1896. 

THE future will be the flower of the present, just as 
the present is the flower of the past. In order even 
to conjecture what we will become, we should know 
something, not only of what we are, but of what we 
have been. Sometimes a bad man repents and be- 
comes a good man, like the one Tennyson tells us of — 

"Whose youth was full of foolish noise. 
Who wore his manhood hale and green." 

Sometimes a confirmed dnmkard takes the gold cure 
and reforms. I trust, that because I have used this 
illustration, I shall not be accused of a bitter and 
unreasoning partisanship. As a general rule, **the 
child is father of the man." Usually, "as the twig is 
bent the tree inclines." Now, what is true of men 
separately, is true also of them when they are amal- 
gamated. The national life of America can hardly 
be expected to be purer or better than that of the 
average American, and the municipal life of Cleveland 
will not be more public spirited, more aggressive, 
more valuable, than is the average life of its citizens. 

193 



PROSPECT AND RETROSPECT 

It is a solemn fact, because it reminds one of his 
responsibilities; but it is nevertheless true, that as a 
man lifts himself, he at the same time lifts the state 
or the city of which he is a part. As he lowers him- 
self, the state or city falls a notch or two. What is 
the public school, but an elevator raising the com- 
mimity to a higher story? An example of broad- 
minded, active, imselfish, earnest citizenship is a 
ladder, by which the rest of us are helped to scale the 
steep wall of progress. 

Now, at the end of this himdred years, why has 
Cleveland accomplished so much? At the end of her 
next hundred years will she have accomplished much 
more? These are the practical, vital questions which 
this centennial celebration presses upon us for answer. 
They should not be considered as merely speculative, 
or so discussed; as for instance, a convention of old 
maids in Boston the other day discussed the best 
methods of bringing up children. Now, Cleveland is 
as great as she is for several reasons: 

First: Because of her environment. This repre- 
sentative and splendid centennial celebration was not 
made possible when Grover Cleveland, last July, 
touched his finger upon the button which started the 
current which lighted and made resplendent our 
triumphal arch. It was made possible when Moses 
Cleaveland, in that July long ago, touched his foot on 
the banks of the Cuyahoga. It was the former, not 
the latter contact which started those masterful and 

194 



PROSPECT AND RETROSPECT 

efficient forces into operation that have made the city 
what she is, and that have lighted and made to shine, 
her real arch of triumph. 

Cleveland is well located. She is the center of a 
region which is destined to become the Essen of 
America, the Birmingham of the United States. If 
her citizens are alive to her natural advantages, her 
manufactories already numerous, will be greatly in- 
creased, and their products vastly multiplied. Their 
chimneys, too, will belch forth an ever-increasing 
cloud of smoke, which will shortly, not partly as it 
does now, but wholly obscure even 

"the spacious firmament on high." 

Our city possesses that priceless boon to a manu- 
facturing center, cheap water transportation to points 
east, west and north of her. In retrospect, it must be 
said that hitherto her citizens have not been alive to 
her great natural advantages; but, in prospect, it is 
to be hoped that these natural advantages will be so 
availed of, that Cleveland a himdred years from now 
will be as much larger and as much more prosperous 
than is the Cleveland of today, as the Cleveland of 
today is larger and more prosperous than was the 
Cleveland of a himdred years ago. 

Second: Cleveland is what she is because of the 
sterling qualities that have entered into her citizen- 
ship — qualities as precious as — 

* 'apples of gold in pictures of silver." 

I use this bimetallic quotation in order to avoid all 

195 



PROSPECT AND RETROSPECT 

cause of offense in the present strained conditions of 
the public mind. Men and women have spent their 
lives here and have left impressions which I do not 
believe the years will wear away. I will not attempt 
to name them, because time would prevent my naming 
them all, and the omission of any would be invidious. 
Men of high aims and purposes have controlled the 
great business interests of the city, and women of 
lofty ideals the social interests of the city; and so the 
standard of honor among our business-men has always 
been high and our social life has been and is refined, 
courteous and hospitable. 

Our city has not only been enriched by material 
bequests and gifts — ^bountiful and splendid; gifts of 
parks and of art treasures and of librarires; gifts 
which will be enjoyed a hundred years from now quite 
as much as they are now; but she has been enriched, 
also, by the good names which her leading citizens 
have bequeathed to her. "A good name is rather to 
be chosen than great riches." These legacies will 
make her rich in the next centennial as well as now. 
But Cleveland is what she is because learning has been 
nurtured here. She turns from the evidences of her 
material prosperity and advancement to point with 
pride at her public school system, which is the best to 
be found anywhere in the land. She is not only a 
manufacturing city; but, she is a imiversity town. 
Her libraries are numerous and are well stocked, and 
learning and business go hand in hand together. 

196 



PROSPECT AND RETROSPECT 

Again, she is what she is, because her citizens love 
her. I heard a story the other day, which, perhaps 
\^ill illustrate my meaning. During the late war the 
lines of the Union and Confederate forces were estab- 
lished at a distance perilously short. Each side had 
thrown up intrenchments and, if a soldier exposed 
himself, ever so little, he was fired at. Suddenly 
someone in the trenches began to sing "Home, Sweet 
Home." Instantly and against the protests of the 
officers, the firing ceased. Muskets were thrown down 
and the men of both armies, forgetting their ani- 
mosity, helped to swell the chorus. We citizens of 
Cleveland do not always agree. We differ on politics 
and on religion, and on other matters. The fire of 
criticism, of crimination and recrimination is often 
sharp; but all differences are forgotten as we join, as 
we are always ready to do, in the sweet chorus, "Home, 
Sweet Home." The structure of our present great- 
ness rests on foundations which those who have gone 
before us have built; but the foundations of the future 
city we are now building. Let us lay them well. 

I can, of course, only conjecture the prospect, for 
I am "neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet"; 
but my imagination is so stimulated by centennial 
enthusiasm (I have taken nothing else), that I can see 
in the future an imperial city, with more than a mil- 
lion inhabitants. A city where taxes are cheerfully 
paid, because they are equitably assessed. A city of 
broad boulevards and of beautiful spacious parks. 

197 



PROSPECT AND RETROSPECT 

A city with harbor facilities large enough and con- 
venient enough to invite commerce, instead as now 
of driving it away. A city with an imposing city 
hall, not on the square but by it. A city whose water 
supply is not adjacent to the m^ouths of its sewers. 
A city where garbage is burned; and not hoarded. A 
great, a beautiful, a prosperous, a healthful city. But, 
my friends, we need not wait a hundred years for the 
fulfillment of this dream. If you and I do our part, 
we shall have such a city in your life-time and in mine. 



198 



The Law and Lawyers 



No law can put money in the pocket of a tramp or 
brains in the head of afooL — J, H. H. 



XXV 
THE LAWYER 

Extracts from Response to Toast at Ohio State Bar 

Association Banquet, heldjuly /p, i8g4y 

at Put-in-Bay. 

THE law, like the wasp, has its business end; it is a 
different end though, for with the law, the 
business end is the bill. 

The business man who believes that he can get along 
without a lawyer, may fare like the man who climbed 
a tree and jeered at Noah when the ark went by and 
told that prudent servant of the Lord that he did not 
believe the shower would be either violent or pro- 
tracted. 

Some scoffer has irreverently suggested that, "last 
will" is not an appropriate term for the formidable 
document in which, with our aid, men so successfully 
conceal their real intentions; and that it should be 
called a "last cause of action," "last casus belli," or 
a "last disappointment"; and that a "legacy" is very 
properly named, because of the facility with which it 
always walks off out of the line of vision of the legatee. 

These imworthy, ill-considered criticisms fly in the 
face of the Scriptural injunction to "sit not in the seat 
of the scornful." 

Lawyers have the commendation of Heaven; for 

201 



THE LAWYER 

the good book says ** Blessed is he who walketh not in 
the counsel of the ungodly" which is the pictorial, 
oriental, scriptural wa^^ of saying: follow only the 
advice of members of the bar. 

It has been said that a physician is better off than a 
lawyer, because, while a lawyer's mistakes constantly 
come up to annoy him, the physician comfortably 
buries his six feet under groimd. 

Unfortunately, the lawyer is not only plagued by 
his own mistalces — he is constantly bothered by the 
mistakes of clients as v/ell. His imagination is 
strained and his inventive faculties are wearied by the 
effort to satisfy the court or jury that his client has 
acted only from the loftiest and most disinterested 
motives and that, if he has erred at all, he has done so 
out of pure benevolence. The client has simply to sit 
and look saintly. 

**No one is hero to his valet," but every client is an 
angel to his lawyer — in public. 

I remember once a professional friend of mine sent 
in a bill for a lump sum. His client insisted that the 
account should be itemized before it was paid. After 
much laborious reflection and figuring, my friend 
finally succeeded in making the specific charges agree 
with the prior sum total, — always a very troublesome 
and trying thing to do — he was able to accomplish this 
result only by inserting this item: 

*To three sleepless nights, spent in tr^dng to invent 
an explanation of your conduct, which would make it 

202 



THE LAWYER 

appear not too glaringly fraudulent and immoral, 
$300." 

If business-men were only as good as their counsel 
have often triumphantly proven them to be, we law- 
yers would be obliged to exclaim, with the Moor, 
''Othello's occupation's gone." 

There is a story, gray-headed, indeed, but which is 
so good that it will probably bear repetition, about a 
client, who went to his lawyer and said to him, "I 
have got a note here which is so doubtful in value that 
I don't want to spend any money in the collection of 
it." We lawyers are often approached that way. It 
is only another way of asking us to work a great deal 
harder than if the claim v/ere perfectly good and 
charge nothing for our services. But this particular 
lawyer did not approve of the transaction as it was 
originally presented to him. After considerable nego- 
tiation, he made an arrangement with his client by 
which he v/as to become the owner of half of the note 
for his services in collecting it. Sometime afterward, 
the client asked him how he was getting along in the 
matter. The lawyer replied, ''Why, haven't you got 
your half yet? I collected mine sometime ago." 

Business is the stately ship, freighted with a goodly 
and needed cargo; the law is the chart which points 
out all the reefs and shoals. The manufacturer (and 
producer, fills the hold; the consumer is the consignee; 
the merchant sails her; but the true lawyer is the 
pilot, who, by reason of his perfect knowledge of the 

203 



THE LAWYER 

winding and dangerous channel, steers the good ship 
safely into port. Each has a part in making the 
venture successful; each should get his due share in its 
benefits and rewards, — 

* 'Useless each without the other." 

The following^ on the same subject, is an excerpt from 

stenographic report of speech before New York State 

Bar Association at Buffalo^ N. Y. Ed. 

It is a satisfaction for us to remember, gentlemen,. 
that in spite of criticism, the English and American 
Lawyers have nevertheless made it impossible by their 
essential labors that any history of civilization, and 
especially a history of the progress of the great Anglo- 
Saxon race, can be written without giving in detail an 
account of their important contribution to the great 
accomplishment. 

What have we lawyers done, gentlemen? The 
world knows it, but I love to repeat and dwell upon it. 
What have lawyers done? They have not only estab- 
lished, but they have maintained, principles to pro- 
tect the weak and the poor. They have in the past 
prevented encroachment of arbitrary power, and as I 
look into your faces I know that lawyers will do it also 
in the future. They have prevented the confiscation 
of property. They have assisted in the imdertaking 
of great enterprises by which this country has 
been made to blossom like the rose, under which 
capital has been fairly compensated and labor prop- 

204 



THE LAWYER 

eriy remunerated. They were instrumental in the 
drafting of that most magnificent and momentous of 
all docimients — the Constitution of the United States 
— and not only as judges, but as advocates, they have 
assisted in obtaining proper constructions of that 
immortal paper. 

They have in the past, and they will, I am sure, in 
the future prevent any assaults upon this corner stone 
of our liberty in order that representative govern- 
ment may not be a failure and perish. I am proud to 
be a member of our profession. I would rather be a 
lawyer than the most advanced reformer who talks 
about that with which he is not familiar, and whose 
habit it is to elevate himself by endeavoring to pull 
other men down. 

The great judges of England and America have 
always exercised and always will exercise justice as 
nearly absolute and fair, as ever can be any human 
justice. I resent the imputation that lawyers are 
evaders of the law. No class of our citizens have 
a higher respect for the law than members of 
our profession — always provided it is law. We 
may not have respect for statutes, which are not law, 
and which represent the whim of the politician or the 
desire of the demagogue; but proper law we respect. 
A statute passed by a legislature and signed by an 
executive, which may be unpleasant, but which is 
within their powers, we ujiiformly respect. 

Within the last eight months one hundred and 

205 



THE LAWYER 

thirty-nine laws have been declared by the courts to be 
unconstitutional. What does that mean? It means 
that these laws have in some way infringed upon the 
guaranteed rights of the citizen. It is the duty of 
members of our profession to see to it, whenever we 
can, that unconstitutional laws shall be so declared 
in order that the members of our legislatures may 
know that their votes — induced as they often are by 
mere reasons of the expediency or by the hope of 
securing popular applause — are not necessarily laws. 
A law may be passed by the imanimous vote of an 
entire legislatxire or by the Congress, both that of the 
Senate and that of the House, and may be impulsively 
signed by an executive, but if it touches the guaran- 
teed rights of the citizen, then it is not law, and it is 
the duty of our profession to see that it is declared not 
to be the law. A law which involves a constitutional 
question can never, thank God, in this coimtry be- 
come law imtil the Supreme Court of the United 
States has put the sterling mark upon it by its man- 
date. 

I repeat, there are no citizens of the United States 
having a higher respect for law than the members of 
our profession. Thackery tells us that definitions are 
never complete; but listen to this one in the words of 
Richard Hooker, nearly four centuries ago, and see if 
his definition does not come very nearly to being com- 
plete. Such law both judges and lawyers will always 
respect: 

206 



THE LAWYER 

*'0f Law there can be no less acknowledged, than 
that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the har- 
mony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do 
her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the 
greatest as not exempted from her power." 



207 



/ believe it to he a fact that all callings tend to develop 
distinctive characteristics in those who follow them. I am 
willing to admit, for instance, that a lawyer is apt to be a 
little contentious: a clergyman a trifle censorious: a 
scientist a shade dogmatic and superior: a teacher some- 
what pedantic: a soldier rather overbearing: a physician 
mysterious: and a business man slightly grasping, — 
just as naturally and inevitably as a walking delegate 
is sure to be meddlesome, a miller dusty, or a coal miner 
grimy. — J, H. H. 



XXVI 
LITERATURE AND THE LAW 

Extract from speech before New York State 
Bar Association at Buffalo^ N. Y. 

'T^HE profession of the Bar and its judges have 
-■* always been complained of from time immemorial. 
The Twentieth Century has no monopoly of criticism of 
our profession. Books are filled, — I do not mean our 
books, but books of literature — ^with the jeers of liter- 
ary people at the law and lawyers; and it is not sur- 
prising. The judge who decided a case and the suc- 
cessful advocate who argues it cannot hope to be 
persona grata to the losing party. Take Shakespeare, 
for example — in comparing two members of our pro- 
fession he said: 

"There is small choice in rotten apples." 
Then he goes on to say elsewhere: 

"In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt 
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, 

Obscures the show of evil?" 
Shakespeare was fined and imprisoned for poaching. 

The genial Goldsmith, the tender author of the 
Deserted Village also throws a brick at us. He has 
embalmed this fly in the amber of his poetry: 
"Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law." 

209 



LITERATURE AND THE LAW 

Goldsmith was imprisoned for debt, history tells us. 
Macklin has it in for us. He says: 

"The law is sort of a hocus-pocus science, that smiles 
in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious 
uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors, than 
the justice of it.'* 

If I recollect rightly there is a rumor current that 
Macklin lost a breach of promise case. 

Even the tuneful Tennyson takes a fling at us and 
defines us as 

"Mastering the lawless science of our law, 
That codeless myriad of precedent, 
That wilderness of single instances." 

Tennyson had a boundary dispute which lasted 
some years in the courts and which he finally lost. 



210 



XXVII 
THE LADY AND THE LAW 

Response to toast at Banquet of the Bar of Cleveland^ 
Reprinted from Cleveland Town Topics circa i8g3. 

ILT'OU will remember that Plato somewhat abruptly 
-*■ tells us that man is nothing but a two-legged animal 
without feathers. The great philosopher was, of 
course, too chivalrous and also too truthful to include 
a woman in a definition so uncomplimentary. 

I cannot refrain, Mr. Chairman, from expressing my 
surprise that a committee of arrangements, so intelli- 
gent, as the one having this banquet in charge, is 
reputed to be, should have selected me — an unadorned 
biped, according to Plato — to respond to this toast; 
when there are so many of our sisters-in-law present 
unplucked and unshorn of graceful ornaments, whom 
we know by experience, are not only perfectly able, 
but entirely willing, to speak on all occasions for them- 
selves. Then, too, Mr. Chairman, the members of 
the gentle sex are so opulent in adjectives, so fertile in 
illustration, so apt in quotations — from each other — 
and have, withal, so perfect a mastery of the argu- 
ment of hominem, and are possessed of a diction 
at once so continuous and yet so copious that, when 
they do speak, they convince the mind and heart of 

211 



THE LADY AND THE LAW 

the hearer with far greater rapidity and effectiveness 
than the * 'dismal preachments" of any imfeathered 
biped can. Now, in proof of the foresnic ability of the 
class which I so unworthily represent, let me tell you 
the tale of the unjust judge. It is not surprising that 
your committee of arrangements, in selecting a man to 
respond to this sentiment, should have overlooked this 
important bit of evidence, for the story is told only in 
the Holy Scriptures. The unjust judge was a man of 
prominence and flourished in Israel some years before 
the time of Christ, and since I have learned from his 
honor. Judge Baldwin, how ancient the Circuit Court 
is, I feel perfectly certain that this eminent jurist was 
a member — perhaps the presiding member — of that 
tribimal, which has been improperly called, you krcv, 
an obstruction set up in front of the eager suitor on his 
way to final justice. 

A widow woman was plaintiff in a cause entered on 
the docket of this Circuit Court of Jerusalem County, 
State of Palestine. On reflection, I hardly think the 
phrase "entered on the docket" entirely accurate, for, 
as I remember, the docket was what might be called a 
verbal one; however, this is a mere detail. For some 
unknown reason, the unjust judge was passionately 
averse to trying the widow's case at all; and after the 
manner of some modem judges (or rather I should 
probably say before the manner of some modem 
judges) he had definitely concluded, without giving her 
any hearing whatever, to render a decree in favor of 

212 



THE LADY AND THE LAW 

the defendant, probably expecting to state in his 
opinion that there was some technical defect in her 
petition, according to a strict construction of the 
Mosaic Code. The widow lady in some way — prob- 
ably owing to her unerring instinct — divined this; and 
what did she do? Did she employ some eloquent and 
distinguished Pharisee or Sadducee (such were the 
names by which lawyers went in those days, I believe, 
Mr. Chairman) to file and argue a motion to advance 
her cause on the docket; and, having done this, then to 
bewilder the unjust judge with brilliant metaphor and 
overwhelm him with citations and precedents from 
the decalogue? I regret, from a professional stand- 
point, to say that this worthy woman did not pursue 
this ordinary and very proper course. No, she 
adopted a plan of her own, which was, perhaps, as 
effective, certainly more speedy and surely more eco- 
nomical. She simply went down for a few consecu- 
tive mornings and sat in the gates of the unjust judge 
and gently lifted up her voice; "howled," I think it 
is, Dr. Thwing, in the original Hebrew. And, as the 
inspired narrative goes on to say, straightway the 
understanding of the imjust judge was enlightened, 
and, as soon as he could possibly transcribe his con- 
clusions on a papyrus roll, he handed down a decision 
in her favor on every point. 

Talk about women not being successful advocates 
at the Bar! Why, a few wild, simple utterances from 
the mouth of this Hebraic relict did more, Mr. Chair- 

213 



THE LADY AND THE LAW 

man, to acquaint that unjust judge with the terms of 
* 'common justice"; did more to enlarge his compre- 
hension of the great principles of equity, and to widen 
the scope of his vision into true jurisprudence, than 
days and days of argument by the most logical and 
distinguished members of the Jerusalem bar could 
have done. 

And, now, if this ancient piece of evidence in sup- 
port of my allegation that women have varied and 
peculiar gifts in a forensic way, should not be suffi- 
cient, let me introduce another bit of proof — let me 
swear all of you distinguished advocates in my pres- 
ence as witnesses; let me ask you this simple question, 
*'have you any of you, ever been successful in an argu- 
ment at home?" One reason why lawyers make such 
admirable husbands as a class is because they are ac- 
customed to verbal defeats and, generally, have a 
realizing sense of when they are beaten, and, then, 
besides, they have such profound and exalted rever- 
ence for the utterances of a court of last resort. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I am not only surprised that I 
should have been selected to respond to this toast; I 
amx astonished that it should have been chosen at all 
as a subject of discussion at a lawyers' banquet, for, 
after due diligence, I confess my utter inability to trace 
any connection whatever between ''the lady" and "the 
law." Of course, I mean the law in a restricted sense — 
as we know it — the law with wliich we are expected 
and, I trust, believed by our clients to be familiar. 

214 



THE LADY AND THE LAW 

A quondam class-mate of mine was once smitten 
with poetic frenzy; he was a young man with large, 
brown eyes and elongated locks, and he finally, after 
a protracted effort, composed and afterward published 
— at his own, or rather at his father^s expense — a 
volume of poetry. The edition was so exquisite that 
it was currently reported among us that our friend 
expected and hoped that the beauty of the binding 
and the creamy softness of the paper would distract 
the mind of the reader (I use this word in the singular 
advisedly, Mr. Chairman) from all consideration of 
the subject matter. Such books, at any rate, are not 
imique. I do not remember definitely about this; but 
I do recollect that the entire edition was promptly 
suppressed, as was also the author, by his unpoetic 
and irate parent, as soon as the bills came in. But one 
sonnet comes to me now. It was addressed *To 
Woman" and ran something like this: 
Woman, thou art a river 

Deep and wide. 
With water flowing 
Swift and sweet; 
Alas, I ne'er have reached 

The other side. 
Though oft have 
Wet my feet. 
It has occurred to me that my failure to harmonize 
*'the lady and the law" is because, that, I, like this unap- 
preciated poet, like "this mute, inglorious Milton," 

215 



THE LADY AND THE LAW 

have been able to do no more than simply to dabble, 
on the edges of the stream without any knowledge 
whatever of the solemn depths beyond. I am sure, 
at any rate, that the ancients, when they looked up 
into the spangled heavens and beheld some shining 
comet pursuing its erratic and apparently inexplicable 
courses through the blue, were led, by their ignorance 
only, to fancy that the great laws of nature were being 
ruthlessly broken, instead of grandly kept. Prob- 
ably, some centuries hence, when we have increased 
in knowledge of the law and have grown in under- 
standing of it, this toast may be adequately and prop- 
erly treated at some lawyer's banquet. I should now, 
however, wish you to forget the inspired injunction 
of the preacher. "He that increaseth knowledge 
increaseth sorrow." 

Let me give you a few instances of apparent con- 
flict between the usual conduct of the lady and the 
well settled principles of the law as we know it, and as 
I hope it will be taught in the admirable law school 
which we have heard tonight is already an accom- 
plished fact. Take the law of partnership, for ex- 
ample, the imderlying principle of which requires a 
sharing of gains and losses; the lady, when she enters 
into this relation with you, usually, I think, takes all 
the profits and leaves you to meet your bills and ac- 
coimts payable, alone. And then there is the law of 
principal and agent; of course, you are always the 
agent and she is invariably the principal; but does she 

216 



THE LADY AND THE LAW 

let such a little thing as the mere fact that you have 
acted within the scope of your authority and have not 
exceeded her instructions prevent her from declining 
to be bound by your acts, if they happen to be un- 
satisfactory in the outcome? And then, in spite of 
Blackstone, of Washburn and of Williams, what is your 
real estate but her personal property, that is, unless 
she has previously changed it into a mere incorporeal 
hereditament? According to strict legal principles, 
I thinlc you will admit most of her contracts are bad 
for an inadequacy, if not for a total failure of consider- 
ation. This failure of consideration is, perhaps, 
specially remarked at Christmas time, when you 
pay, not only for your present to her, but for hers 
to you as well. Has anyone ever convicted her of 
having committed a tortuous act, no matter how 
supremely she may have disregarded all the well- 
settled maxims of Addison? It is only fair to her 
to say that, probably, she has a greater familiarity 
with bills and notes than with any other branch of 
the law, though the latter, as she draws them, do not 
contain a promise to pay. And then there is the law 
of pleading — shades of Chitty defend us — why, she 
is both plaintiff and defendant at will; she puts a 
petition and an answer in the same instrument; she 
demurs when she ought to deny, and denies when she 
ought to admit, and she is not satisfied with a reply 
alone, but introduces her rebutters and sur rebutters, 
rejoinders and sur-rejoinders in a very bewildering 

217 



THE LADY AND THE LAW 

way, she insists on filing a plea, too, long after issue is 
joined and, indeed after the case has gone to final 
judgment, as you suppose: and then, while she is quite 
willing to justify herself by an avoidance, does she 
ever, as is required by good practice, join a confession 
with it? 

But, Mr. Chairman, what matters it that women 
may be unfamiliar with law, as we narrowly define and 
practice it? There is a law concerning which she 
knows more than the best of us. It is a law greater 
than the common law of England; more adequate in 
remedy, more far reaching in succor, than the broad- 
est equity our courts have any notion of. Its prin- 
ciples are more exalted and yet more profound than 
those ever conceived by the wisest of our legislators, 
or annoimced by the chief est of our judges. It is 
"higher than the Constitution," the supreme law of the 
imiverse — the law of Love — on it hang all the law and 
the prophets. I gratefully and reverently acknowl- 
edge that there is a close relationship between the 
lady in her best estate and this great law. From the 
rich soil of her obedience to it, spring the precious and 
fragrant flowers of a mother's tender devotion, of a 
true wife's self-forgetful care. Because she so faith- 
fully exemplifies its blessed principles, a woman ex- 
erts her gentle influence which falls like a benediction 
on civilization and its laws. Lessons she has un- 
consciously taught and we, perhaps having imcon- 
sciously learned, make our statutes more humane, our 

218 



THE LADY AND THE LAW 

judgment more charitable. She often stands (some- 
times unwisely, I admit) between the offender and 
justice; but the spectacle of her tender pity availeth 
much. Impelled by this law, with her healing minis- 
trations, she seeks to repair the ravages of war, and 
white-robed Peace is only fitly represented by poet, 
painter or by sculptor in woman's form. Because of her, 
hospitals are built and maintained; broad charities are 
founded, the aged are cared for; children are nurtured, 
and the weak and erring, even, are reclaimed; and 
while she may not have lighted, she surely trims the 
lamp of true learning. She fires our ambitions, colors 
our hopes, glories in our triumphs and shares in our 
defeats. There is alv/ays a chance for a man until 
he loses respect for her, as Tennyson so beautifully 
sings, when 

"... faith in womankind 
beats with his blood. . . . 

Trust in all things high 

Comes easy to him, 

And, though he trip and fall. 

He shall not blind his soul with clay." 



219 



XXVIIl 

ATTORNEY FOR THE DEVIL IN 
ALPHA BELTS VERSUS SATAN 

Address delivered at Banquet of the Alpha Delta Phi 

Fraternity^ WaldorJ- Astoria Hotel ^ 

New York City^ May 12^ i8gg. 

T HAVE not been informed whether I am to appear 
-■■ for the plaintiffs or for the defendant. When the 
chairman of the committee requested me to come, he, 
indeed, began his letter with "Dear Brother" and 
ended it "Fraternally yours," and yet I was, neverthe- 
less, fearful that his silence as to whom I was to repre- 
sent might be considered as significant. Clearly, it 
might mean one of two things; either that, so far as 
the committee were concerned, I was entirely free to 
go to the Devil, if I preferred to do so, or that they 
considered me peculiarly qualified to represent, both 
as adviser and advocate, one who may be inoffensively 
characterized as the father of the most oriental and 
opulent of all imaginings; and yet felt reluctant to 
make so painful a disclosure to me in writing. 

I have always had a sneaking fondness for Satan. 
He has at least earned the sincere compliment of being 
denominated what gentlemen who live by games of 
chance call "a good loser." For quite a protracted 

221 



ATTORNEY FOR THE DEVIL 

period, if sacred history is correct, he has engaged in a 
hopeless conflict against overwhelming odds, with an 
ardor and a courage worthy of a better cause. Ever 
since I first began reading Milton and attempted to 
rise to the height of that great argument, "and justify 
the ways of God to men," I have been convinced that 
my client is entitled to the commiseration of all of 
those generous-hearted souls whose sympathies go out 
to the imder dog. 

You must remember with a certain amount of ad- 
miration, how quickly he recovered from the shock of 
that tremendous fall out of Paradise; how well he 
seems to take pimishment. There is certainly a very 
remarkable resilience about him. 

Again, while I must admit that Satan is bad, he is 
really not primarily to blame for it. An eloquent 
agnostic, has said, you will remember, that there is 
*'just as much design in a cancer as there is in a rose." 
Tennyson tells us that: 

"Nothing walks with aimless feet; 



"That not a worm is cloven in vain; 
That not a moth with vain desire. 
Is shriveled in a useless fire. 
Or but subserves another's gain." 
It is no doubt true, as the Good Book says, that my 
client goes up and down the Earth, "like a roaring 
lion, seeking whom he may devour." But, granted 
the existence of omnipotence and omniscience; if he 

222 



IN ALPHA BELTS VERSUS SATAN 

did not engage in this ravening performance, some 
other poor devil would have to. In this curiously 
complicated world of ours, the fragrant flower and the 
poisonous weed; the singing bird and the venomous 
scorpion; the gentle zephyr and the devastating cy- 
clone; the refreshing summer rain and the cruel winter 
storm; all perform their appropriate functions. When 
a snake buries his fangs in the calf of your leg and in- 
jects his venom into you and sends it in a mad race 
coursing through your veins, that it may quickly reach 
the citadel of your being and overthrow it, while his 
performance is an extremely unpleasant one, he is 
really no more to be blamed for it than is the violet, 
which opens for your delight and sensuous enjoyment, 
its scented petals fresh with dew. Both of them are 
simply living up to the law of their being, that is all; 
and what is my client doing more, or less? 

I wish I could get you into the reverent and broad 
frame of mind of a certain gentleman, whom I once 
met, and who insisted that everything, however un- 
pleasant, had its abundant reason and compensation. 
He informed me that he had once been bitten by a 
snake, and had ground for abundant thankfulness, 
rather than for any criticism, because of the fact that 
he was able for once in his life, without any subsequent 
pangs of conscience and without the necessity of 
making an apology, either to his pastor or to his wife, 
to get gloriously drunk and fill himself completely full 
of good, old whiskey. It is unnecessary to say that 

223 



ATTORNEY FOR THE DEVIL 

this gentleman came from the State of Kentucky. 

But, my friends, my client fills a very important 
office in our m.oral development. He is the athletic 
instructor in the world's gymnasium, so to speak; or, 
to change the metaphor, he is the essential apparatus 
in that gymnasiimi, a moral pimch-bag, a dumb-bell, 
or a vaulting-bar. 

You will remember the comparison which Mark 
Twain makes (favorable to himself, of course) be- 
tween his character and that of Washington. He 
goes on to say, you will recall, that Washington could 
not tell a lie, while he (Mark Twain) could, but would 
not. That character is neither a true one nor a fine 
one which is simply good because it is never tempted 
at all. The holiness of the hermit and the sanctity of 
the mm both lack virility. It is the character which 
resists temptation, and meets it, and overcomes it, 
which is deserving of praise and which should excite 
our admiration, and, without Satan, such characters 
would be unpossible. 

I remember hearing a very distinguished divine of 
the old fashioned kind, who believed in a physical 
place of punishment of the hottest and most sulphur- 
ous and most eternal order, preach a sermon on the 
goodness of God. Knowing that he was a Calvinist 
of the most advanced type, I kept wondering how he 
could possibly reconcile that pervading and abimdant 
goodness with the blistering, burning, unending tor- 
ment which those who, according to his theologic 

224 



IN ALPHA BELTS VERSUS SATAN 

dogma, were not numbered among the elect were to 
suffer forever; but, when the good man reached that 
branch of his subject, he had no difiQculty with it, 
whatever. He asked his hearers to remember how 
very unhappy a bad man was, if he were thrown for 
any measurable length of time into the society of good 
m.en. He graphically depicted the uneasiness and dis- 
comfort and irritation which an unregenerate party 
would experience, if, through the long eons, he were to 
sit on a damp cloud and engage in an uninterrupted 
conversation with the holy Saint Peter for example. 
And, having thus laid down his premises, he reached 
this powerful and logical conclusion, *T tell you, be- 
loved friends. Hell itself is an institution of imspeak- 
able mercy." 

On this hypothesis, how could the world have pos- 
sibly gotten along, or how can it possibly get along, 
without my client. Why, my friends, when you come 
to reason about it, Satan, instead of being an agent 
for evil, is, after all, a positive power for good. 

So, gentlemen, when you retire to the jury-room 
and deliberate on the verdict to be rendered in this 
important case, I trust that you will not let such trif- 
ling matters as the unfortunate physical deformities 
of my client prejudice you against him; that his spiked 
tail and cloven hoof will excite, rather your sympathy 
than your disfavor; that you will remember that *'God 
made him, and therefore let him pass," devil though 
he be; for, without him, we certainly never would have 

225 



ATTORNEY FOR THE DEVIL 

reached that exalted pinnacle of moral elevation from 
which we Alpha Delts survey the rest of mankind. 



226 



Fr agmen ts 



XXIX 

THE TOASTMASTER 

A TOASTMASTER is like the ring-master who gives 
-^■^ the entertainment its initiative by the crack of 
his whip; with his feet seciirely planted on the saw- 
dust he has no part in the risks which the artists run 
when they turn their somersaults, ride their prancing 
steeds or take their aerial flights. So the toastmaster, 
while he may perhaps, be saddened if any of the 
performers fail, he cannot be humiliated or injured. 

The toastmaster, also, like the wife of your bosom, 
always has the last word. Nothing but a provi- 
dential dispensation, nothing short of a miracle, can 
deprive either her or him of this valuable prerogative. 
There is only one recorded instance where the functions 
of the toastmaster were seriously interrupted, and that 
was at the memorable feast of Belshazzar; and Lot's 
wife was the only helpmeet ever cut off in the middle 
of a sentence. Like the court jester of old, the toast- 
master possesses the inestimable and imique privilege 
of speaking the truth even to the king. Irresponsible 
as a bankrupt, he can well afford to be as fearless as a 
reporter. He can strike like the pugilist, and yet 
claim the immunity of the small boy. Like a mother, 
he can spank without being spanked in return. Like 

229 



THE TOASTMASTER 

the physician, he can prescribe noxious doses for 
others, but need not take them himself. Great is the 
toastmaster. 



230 



XXX 

JOYS OF THE AFTER DINNER 
SPEAKER 

TT is a difficult thing to make an after-dinner speech. 
■"■ You are called upon to deliver it at a moment when 
you are stuffed to repletion; when all your faculties 
(if you happen to be the fortunate possessor of any 
just then) are dulled and blunted; and when Nature 
imperatively demands that you should sit still and 
remain quiet, just then you are forced by the call of 
the toastmaster, by the expectations of your friends, 
and by the inexorable barbaric usages of the banquet 
to get upon your feet and make an ass of yourself. 

I am somewhat in the situation of a Scotch dominie 
who on a certain Sunday exchanged pulpits with the 
minister of a neighboring kirk. The good man was 
not an extemporaneous speaker at all, but was what 
the brethren of his ilk called a "manuscript smeller." 
You can, therefore, perhaps imagine his embarrass- 
ment and chagrin when he discovered after he had 
completed the preliminary services of the morning 
that he had forgotten his sermon. He explained the 
situation to the expectant congregation in words some- 
thing like these: "Ma brethren and sisters, owing to 
a misfortune that has happened me the morn I having 

231 



JOYS OF THE AFTER DINNER SPEAKER 

through inadvertence, left my manuscript at hame; I 
shall be obleeged on this occasion for the spiritool wis- 
dom that I shall discourse to you, to rely wholly on 
God Almighty; and to speak to you only sich words as 
He in His infinite wisdom and mercy shall put into me 
mooth. But I can assure you that if you will come to 
hear me preach this P. M. you will not be so sair dis- 
appointed, for I'll not commit the same blunder again 
I promise you, and I shall then be much better pre- 
pared to speak to your eedification." 



232 



XXXI 
TOASTING THE GALLANT 69TH 

A story told in toast delivered at Banquet of 
Mining Engineers, June 4, i8gi. 

A T a banquet of the officers of the Army of the 
-^^ Potomac, held in New York some years since, 
after the regular toasts had been responded to, im- 
promptu ones to different corps, divisions and regiments 
of the army were offered; but it so happened, that 
through an oversight, no reference was made to an Irish 
regiment, the 69th New York. Two of the officers of 
that regiment, men with gallant war records, but who 
had been imbibing a little too much champagne that 
evening, were present and noted this omission with 
regret. One of them turned to the other and said, 
*'Mike, amid all the toasts that have been flying Yound 
this evening to the different corpses and batteries and 
rigimints of the army of the Potomac, no mintion has 
been made of the gallant 69th rigimint, the Irish 
irgimint, commanded by ould Colonel Corcoran, 
and, if you'll shtand up and let me lane on your 
shoulder, I'll get up on a chair and propose an 
appropriate toast to that rigimint myself." After 
he had mounted the chair, with a, hand upon his 

233 



TOASTING THE GALLANT 69TH 

comrade's shoiilder to steady himself, he began, 
''Mishter Toastmaster — Amid all the toasts that 
have been flying 'round this evening, no mintion 
has been made of the gallant 69th rigimint, com- 
manded by ould Colonel Corcoran, which had the 
honor, sur, to coimt me among its numbers and which, 
without any arrogance at all, sur, I can, with perfect 
modesty, denominate as the most gallant rigimint 
that fit on our side during the War of the Rebellion. 
I intend to rectify this omission, sur, by proposing an 
appropriate toast to that rigimint myself. Here's to 
the gallant 69th rigimint of New York, sur, the Irish 
rigimint, commanded by Colonel Corcoran — God 
bless her — the last to reach the field of battle and the 
first to lave it." After the laughter which followed 
this toast had somewhat subsided, his comrade tiimed 
to him and said, 'Tat, in offering that toast, you have 
played the divil, and if you'll stand up now and let me 
lane on your shoulder, I'll kirrect your mishtake." 
After the toastmaster had succeeded in accomplishing 
a fair measure of silence, Mike began: **Mishter 
Toastmaster and gintlemin of the Army of the Poto- 
mack — me gallant comrade on me lift has been a 
little too convivial this av'nin, and in offering a toast 
to the 69th rigimint, he has succeeded, inadvertently, 
in putting the horse before the cart. I will endeavor 
sur, in my humble way, to rictifj^ his mishtake by 
proposing an appropriate toasht m.esilf. Here's to 
the gallant 69th rigimint of New York, sur, the Irish 

234 



TOASTING THE GALLANT 6 9TH 

rigimint, commanded by Colonel Corcoran, equal to 
none." 

As the representative of mining stockholders, sir, 
I should be pleased to follow the example of the Irish 
soldier by offering an appropriate toast myself — I 
propose the health of the mining engineers of America, 
equal to none. 



235 



XXXII 
THE BANKERS AND THE DUTCHMAN 

Extract from response to toast at the Bankers' Association 
Dinner^ September 20, i8g4 

T> ANKERS are many-sided. Better than any class 
-■-^ that I know, you literally obey St. Paul's injunc- 
tion; and are **A11 things to all men!" You are both 
optimists and pessimists, as occasion may require. You 
are generous to the opulent, niggardly to the improvi- 
dent, you are always willing to give — your advice — 
to the unfortunate; and, in every way, in the conduct 
of your business, you illustrate and exemplify the 
truth of the divine statement: 

*To him that hath shall be given, and from him 
that hath not shall be taken away even that which he 
hath." 

You not only have a large amount of interest in all 
your customers; but you succeed in exacting no in- 
considerable interest from them. 

I have often been surprised at noticing how un- 
erringly you define the difference between accommo- 
dations purely social and those which are commercial. 
I remember a story, which illustrates the difference 
between your social and official conduct. A Pennsyl- 
vania Dutchman, who had been for many years a 

237 



THE BANKERS AND THE DUTCHMAN 

depositor in a national bank in that state, desired to 
borrow a thousand dollars. He made his application, 
in the first instance, to the Cashier, who informed him, 
that as an individual, he saw no reason why the 
accommodation should not be extended; but that as 
Cashier, he had no authority whatever in the matter, 
and that it would be necessary to leave the question 
to the decision of the directors. If our friend had 
known as much about bankers as I do, he would have 
relinquished hope right then. 

The Dutchman, being acquainted with all the 
members of the Board, visited them all, from the 
President down. Each one told him that, individu- 
ally, he could see no reason why the loan should not 
be made; but, that it was a matter which would have 
to be decided by the directors at their next meeting. 

Having gotten all of these pledges, the Dutchman, 
with considerable confidence, appeared at the bank 
on the day when the regular meeting of the Board of 
Directors was held, and was somewhat surprised to be 
informed by the President that the Board had unani- 
mously decided to refuse him the loan. He requested 
the privilege of appearing before the Board and mak- 
ing a simple statement, and the President, not wishing 
to offend him more than was absolutely necessary, 
consented to this rather unusual proceeding. The 
Dutchman entered the Board room and spoke as 
follows: "Gentlemen, I have known you all for a big 
many years. You are all my friends and neighbors, 

238 



THE RANKERS AND THE DUTCHMAN 

and, as individuals, you are very good men and I like 
you all very much; but as directors, you are all 
damned liars." 



239 



XXXIII 
PATRICK AND THE DEVIL 

Speaking of the Precariousness of Business back in igii under 

the operation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act^ the following 

story was told at the Steel Corporation Dinner in 

New York on January nth. Ed. 

"D USINESS men of this time, and especially those of 
-■^ you who have engaged in large affairs seem to me 
to be somewhat in the position of an Irishman who was 
about to die — I do not mean that you are going to die, 
but for another reason that I will explain. And the 
priest came to administer supreme unction to him. 
"Pat," said the priest, "you are going to die." "No," 
he said, "am I?" "Yes, you are, Pat," he said. "The 
doctor said you have only a few hours to live, and I 
have come to absolve you and to save your guilty 
soul if I can. In the first place, Patrick, do you de- 
nounce the devil and all his works? and declare from 
the bottom of your heart that you utterly hate and 
detest him?" Pat said, "Must I say that. Father?" 
"You must if you want to be saved." "If I say it, 
will I be saved. Father?" "Well, I hope so, Pat; but 
nobody can tell what God Almighty will do to you 
when he gets hold of you, after the life you have led." 
Pat said, "Father you put me in a hell of a position. 

240 



PATRICK AND THE DEVIL 

Between you and me, as I am about to die, this is no 
time for me to make enemies." 



241 



XXXIV 

FIAT-MONEY IN THE DAYS OF 
POPULISM 

Two stories told during Response to Toast at Dinner of 

New York Republican Club, held at Waldorf Hotel, 

New York City, February 12, i8gj. 

A FREE silverite was making a speech in Cleve- 
-^^^ land. He laid down the of t repeated proposition 
that the stamp of the government on anything, imme- 
diately made it worth what that stamp indicated. He 
had the long whiskers commonly foimd with those of his 
views. He was interrupted by a colored man in the 
audience, who said, "If the government should stamp 
yo' whiskers *Hay* could yo' find any jack-ass 
damned fool enough to eat them"? 

I met another bi-metal-ist one day in the West. 
He had lately failed, and his creditors had succeeded 
in realizing, not fifty, but only ten cents on the dollar 
from his discovered assets; and he had then obtained 
his discharge in insolvency, having taken a poor 
debtor's oath, which the law of that locality permitted. 
He was naturally on the side of the down trodden and 
oppressed, and was urging the importance of the free 
and unlimited coinage of silver in order that a dollar 
of debt could be paid with fifty cents of value; when 

242 



FIAT-MONEY IN THE DAYS OF POPULISM 

an Irishman interrupted him with the remark "For 
Heaven's sake, go to school man and study your 
arithmetic. You're forty cents ahead of every dollar 
under the present law. 



243 



XXXV 
OWL AND THE DEMOCRATS 

Extract from Response to Toast at Lincoln Banquety 
held Feb. 12^ iSgs. 

A N Irish member of the Common Coimcil of Cleve- 
•^^- land went shooting some time ago in the vicinity 
of the city. He and a companion walked up a ravine, 
the ragged sides of which towered about sixty feet 
above them. On a limb of an overhanging tree sat an 
owl. The Irishman took aim and fired, and the owl 
came tumbling down. The marksman went up to the 
dead bird, and after looking at it for a moment, 
turned to his companion and said, 'Taith, Pat, there's 
a good cartridge wasted. The fall alone would have 
killed the damned spalpeen." 

In November, when the Democratic party came 
tumbling down from the lofty height on which it had 
perched itself in '92, one might almost have imagined 
that the fall alone would have killed it; but, the cart- 
ridge brought down the owl, and the earnest work of 
Republicans in the last campaign brought down the 
Democratic party. 



244 



XXXVI 
DEGREES OF HONESTY 

In the speech at Banquet of Ohio Republican League at 
CoIumbuSy Feb. 14^ /<5'pj, the degree of integrity 
of a certain political group was character- 
ized by the following story. Ed. 

JIM Green deals somewhat largely in horses, and has 
in his employ an Irishman. A gentleman in an ad- 
joining town offered by letter to sell a team to Jim 
Green, who discussed with Patrick the advisability of 
making the purchase, and suggested that, before the 
sale v/as concluded, an examination of the animals 
should be had. This, Patrick considered entirely 
unnecessary, and informed his employer that the 
gentleman who owned the horses was so honest that 
if there was anything the matter with them he would 
certainly have disclosed it; and he ended his encomium 
by remarking, *1 tell you sor, Mr. Smith is the most 
honest man that ever dealt in horses." Jim Green 
replied, "Why, Patrick, I deal in horses myself, and I 
certainly am honest, am I not?" * 'Faith, you are 
sor," said the Irishman; ''but, be jabers, you are 
not like Mr. Smith, sor; you are not damn foolish 
honest." 



245 



XXXVII 

MOTIVES 

i4/^00D intentions," said Samuel Johnson, "pave 
^^ the way to hell," so good motives, as a sole 
guide of conduct, may, as they did the Southern 
gentleman, land you in jail. He was arrested for steal- 
ing a pair of trousers, and admitting to the Magistrate 
who tried him that he had stolen them, declined to plead 
guilty, on the groimd that his motive was alright. He 
said to the court **Your Honor, I dun took them pants 
to be baptized in." 



246 . 



XXXVIII 

AT LEAST, THE TEETH WERE 
TRUTHFUL 

A BOSTON horse dealer some little time ago tried to 
-^^ sell a horse to a farmer. He expatiated on the 
somewhat unapparent merits of the animal with that 
fervid and accurate eloquence for which men of his 
calling are so remarkable. Finally, having almost ex- 
hausted even his opulent imagination, he wound up by 
way of a convincing and effective peroration, as follows: 
"Gen. Banks came down to my stable the other day 
and was looking at that horse, and he said to me: 
*Brown, IVe got a picture home of General Jackson 
at the battle of New Orleans on horseback, and the 
horse in that picture looks exactly like your horse. 
You can't tell them apart'." The farmer then walked 
up to the horse's head and opened his mouth, and ex- 
amined his teeth for a few minutes, and slowly re- 
marked: "Wall, Mister Brown, I should jedge that 
this was the same identical hoss." 



247 



XXXIX 

THE LAWYERS GET HELL 

]^rOW the members of the Bar have been greatly 
-^ ^ censured lately. I cannot quite agree with His 
Honor, Judge Hiscock, that criticism has been con- 
fined particularly to the Bench. The situation of 
lawyers, at present reminds me of a story of a gentle- 
man who died and went, presumably as an adequate 
punishment for his misdeeds, to those warm regions 
where, if reports are to be believed, asbestos garments 
are the most enduring. As he entered the portals he 
met a friend of his who warmly (in more senses than 
one), greeted him. "Why, George," said the new- 
comer, *1 did not know you were here." "Didn't 
know I was here," said the welcoming friend, "I own 
this place; I run it." "Great Scott"! said the new- 
comer, "how did you get it"? "Why, my wife gave 
it to me in the days before I died." 



248 



XL 

THE TRUTHFUL ATTORNEY 

nPHE public press, with some few notable excep- 
-■- tions, has eagerly joined in the **View Halloo!", 
and the muck rakers have painted lawyers in colors 
darker even than the ink in which they have at- 
tempted to describe us. Even America's incomparable 
humorist has apparently turned against us, because on 
a late occasion in public he told a story of a very distin- 
guished lawyer, who, after dinner, went into his den and 
took down a favorite meerschaum pipe which he was 
coloring to the delight of his eye perhaps, but to the 
detriment of his nervous system. He filled and lighted 
the pipe, when it came apart in his hands, showing 
that it had been broken and glued together. **Who 
broke my pipe,"? he angrily exclaimed. "I did it 
father," said his little son, *1 am like George Washing- 
ton, I cannot tell a lie." In the presence of his family 
the lawyer commended his son for his candor; but in 
the dim watches of the night he drenched his pillow 
with copious tears, and when his wife asked him what 
he was crying about he said that it had been the hope 
of his life that his son would follow his footsteps, but 
after the incident of the evening he was convinced it 
was impossible for his son to become a lawyer. 

249 



Verses 



XLI 
JERRY BRAND'S TALE 

AND HIS THEOLOGY 

It's all-fired curus stranger, 
How, with all he's got to do. 

The good Lord finds time to help us 
When we need a pullin' through; 

But the thought's a solid comfort 
When a chap gets kind er blue. 

What is that? You don't believe it? 

You're a wiser man than me, 
And can do the tallest talkin'. 

Ain't lamed a bit, you see; 
Never ain't had any schoolin' 

Much beyond the rule of three. 

Couldn't answer you, that's sartin. 

In a job I'd stand no show, 
But it's jest as sure as shootin' 

God does help us, that I know; 
And you couldn't change me any 

If you argerfied till snow. 

Yes, I'll tell you how I know it 

253 



JERRY BRAND'S TALE 

And I don't think you'll deny, 
That one fact's a dumed sight bigger 

Than a pile of books sky high; 
For men's reas'nin' powers weaken 

But cold facts don't never lie. 

When I just corned here to settle 
Things was mighty wild and tough. 

And we hadn't many neighbors 
And the few there was, was rough; 

And I shinned around like blazes 
To get bread and clo'es enough. 

But my wife was strong and hearty 
And our little Moll of five, 

With brown hair and cheeks of roses 
Was the purtiest thing alive; 

For a couple such as they was 
Why a fellow'd ought to strive. 

I'd been raisin' sheep that winter 
And I told Moll I'd go down, 

Soon as shearin' times was over 
For to sell the wool in town; 

And I'd buy a dolly for her 
With real hair and eyes of brown. 

Well, you bet she was delighted 
And from mornin' until night, 

254 



JERRY BRAND'S TALE 

She kept prattlin' of that dolly 
And, in bed with eyes shet tight 

Why, she'd offun dream about it 
And lauf out with all her might. 

Well, one momin' bright and early 
When the roads got sort er.dry, 

I hitched in the team for startin' 
Moll was up to say good-bye; 

And by gosh, she was so happy, 
I almost a thought she'd fly. 

When I'd done my chores in town that day 

(For the wool I got my pile), 
And had bought the things we needed, 

And the doll — well, I should smile, 
Afore you could beat that, stranger 

You'd a had to hunt a while. 

And had tackled in the critters. 

It was gettin' ruther late, 
And the landlord at the tavern 

Said, he thought I'd better wait; 
'Till the niomin', count of robbers 

And the roads was not fust rate. 

But the devil couldn't hinder, 

I was longin' so to be 
On the settee in the cabin, 

255 



JERRY BRAND'S TALE 

With the yung un on my knee 

Huggin' of that doll I'd bought her, 

Which was most as big as she. 

Now the road was rough and darker 
Than the pocket in your pants; 

Mostly runnin' through the timber 
And a takin' ugly slants; 

But the bosses somehow kep' it 
And we met with no mischance. 

Till I got 'bout two miles from home 
Where the ford is through the stream, 

I'd stopped and was a-waitin' there 
For I'd jest yanked up the team; 

To let the critters breathe a spell, 
When I thought I heard a scream. 

It seemed to come, from out the woods 

And a little to the right. 
It wan't a pleasant sound to hear 

All alone and in the night; 
And I ain't ashamed to own up 

That it guv me quite a fright. 

Well, I sot still and listened 

With my senses on a strain, 
And it wan't a half a minit 

'Fore I heard that cry again; 

256 



JERRY BRAND'S TALE 

Kind o* sobbin* and a moanin* 
Like a little un in pain. 

Well, of course, I jumped the wagon 

And was startin' off to see. 
What it was that raised the racket 

When the thought corned over me; 
"It's a cussed trap to rob ye. 

Or a wild cat up a tree." 

Then a blarsted, ugly feelin' 
Came a-crawling down my spine, 

And I clambered in the wagon 
In a second, I opine; 

And it wan't a half a jiffy, 
Tore I guv the team the line. 

But my conscience got a talkin' 

Sayin' Jerry be a man; 
Now, you're actin' like a coward, 

And it tain't a decent plan; 
If a feller critter's sufferin' 

Not to help it, if you can. 

Perhaps a child's a wanderin' 
In the woods, alone and lost, 

If it tumbles in that river 
It wan't never get acrost; 

"Whoa," sez I, "Please God, I'll resk it, 

257 



JERRY BRAND'S TALE 

Without coimtin* of the cost." 

Now the road was so dumed narrer 
That to turn around, I feared; 

Would dump the whole blamed outfit 
And, from whar the sound I'd heerd 

We'd traveled quite a likely bit 
For the team, like me, was skeered. 

So I hitched 'em thar and footed 
Back to whar I'd heerd that cry. 

It was stiller than the church yard 
Just the night wind's lonesome sigh; 

And the bubblin' of the river 
As it went gurglin' by. 

So I shouted out, **Whar be you?" 

But I didn't get no sound; 
Then I plimged right in the timber 

And began to grope around; 
Purty soon my foot struck somethin' 

I stretched out my hand and found 

A poor, draggled little baby 
On the leaves thar at my feet, 

Sleepin' soimder than a cricket 
It was so dead gone and beat; 

Well, I took it to the wagon 
And laid it on the seat. 
258 



JERRY BRAND'S TALE 

And I wrapped a blanket round it 
For to keep the poor thing warm. 

And, with mighty joyful feelin's 
That Fd saved the kid from harm; 

And had not slunk off and left it. 
I continued toward the farm. 

But I see when I comed near the ranch 
Things wan't by no means straight. 

For a crowd of men with torches 
Was a comin' through the gate; 

And when they heard my wagon wheels 
They seemed all to hesitate. 

And one comed out to meet me; 

When he spoke, I knew my pard. 
And, sez he, 'The luck's agin ye, 

But don't go to take it hard; 
For us boys will back you solid, 

Till you turn the winnin' card." 

And, sez I, "Speak up, what ails ye?" 
And then up come knock-kneed Sol, 

And his rough, harsh voice grew tender 
As sez he, "Your little Moll; 

She's got lost thar in the timber; 
She went out to meet that doll." 

I most fainted for a minit 

259 



JERRY BRANDOS TALE 

For my heart was clogged with fear, 
'Till a sweet voice from the wagon 

Piped, **Dad, me ain't lost, me's here"; 
And the boys, they waved their torches, 

And begun to yell and cheer. 

When the mother heerd the racket 
She rushed out like one possessed. 

And she grabbed the young un from us 
And she clasped it to her breast; 

And the boys — oh, dang it, stranger 
I must let you guess the rest. 

But you know why Tm a'bettin' 
That the Lord on high is good. 

And keeps layin* low to help us — 
Cryin', dum it, thought I should; 

Tried to tell this tale 'afore, sir. 
Without sniffling, never could. 



260 



XLII 

THE SCRAP OF PAPER 

"Put in one scale" — the Chancellor cried — 
"Our German army's strength and pride. 
And power to overwhelm and kill, 
And bend mankind to our Kaiser's will; 
And the German longing for 'the day' 
When the world must humble tribute pay 
To our proud and haughty over lord 
Who shall rule the earth by right of sword; 
And put in, also, our general staff 
And perfect system; — it is to laugh, 
In the other scale there'll be something small, — 
A scrap of paper, — and that is all. 
Against the weight of the guns of Krupp, 
That Belgium treaty must go up." 

But the ruthless Hun has learned to know 
How heavy a paper scrap may grow, 
When weighted down by the German name. 
Which stands for nothing now but shame; 
When gashed by "hack" of the German sword. 
Made bltmt by the rust of her broken word; 
As soggy with mingled blood and tears. 
And grimed with the ashes of works of years, 

261 



THE SCRAP OF PAPER 

And scorched by the flames of burning homes. 
In the other scale that paper comes. 
The Chancellor wakens from his dream, 
For his loaded scale has kicked the beam, 
And to paper scrap he deemed so light 
Weighs more than the German Empire's might. 



262 



XLIII 
THE PRICE 

Note: Each German soldier wears an identification check. The 
Newspapers of September Jth^ 191 4^ reported that sixty-two thousand 
of these checks had been gathered by the Allies to be sent to Berlin. 

A costly thing is a War Lord's word, 
When he bids his subjects draw the sword. 

There's part of the cost the Germans pay, 

For the Kaiser's plunge into bloody strife; 

For a Metal check, they trade away 

A vigorous German soldier's life. 

Thousands and thousands of little tags 

Have been garnered by British and French, they say, 

To send to Berlin in gunny bags. 

Dear God! what an awful price to pay 

And scarcely a month has flown away. 

But this is only the partial cost. 
Because in the timiult of the fray. 
Thousands and thousands of checks are lost 
And the lives they tally are thrown away; 
For they fail to get even metal discs 
For those who bleeding and anguished stray, 
For the souls they count in missing lists, 

263 



THE PRICE 

Great God! what an awful price to pay; 
And scarcely a month has flown away. 

Can the Kaiser bring them back again? 

Can the War Lord still the tortured wail, 

Of wives and children for murdered men? 

Oh! the shocked world shudders at the tale. 

If 'twere only loss of yellow gold, 

Or only loss of barter and sale. 

Why hearts might grieve, but they'd not grow cold. 

Dear God! what an awful price to pay; 

Ere scarcely a month has flown away. 

When the Kaiser bids them fight they must; 

They cannot, they dare not, disobey; 

But there'll be reckoning, since God is just, 

For blood and iron have had their day: 

And out of the wreck of War for Greed 

The German nation will be freed, 

From the heavy hand of the War Lord's breed 

But God! what an awful price to pay; 

And scarcely a month has flown away. 

A costly thing is a War Lord's word 
When he bids his subjects draw the sword. 



264 



XLIV 
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 

As defined by Germany in her latest note. 

Verses written February^ 19^7' 

Before the war, our Kaiser had to start 
With sad reluctance and with bleeding heart, 
There was no freedom of the salted seas, 
We could build ships and sail them as we please ; 
And other nations all could do the same; 
But this was freedom only in the name. 

Great Britain had a larger fleet than we; 

We felt restricted; Gott! this must not be; 

So not for envy, not for lust, nor gain. 

We entered Belgium, piled her land with slain, 

Invaded France; enriched her fields with gore; 

We raped, we robbed, we murdered, drank and swore, 

That we as himible servants of the Lord, 

And as his only agents, drew the sword. 

All this, that in the end at last the sea 
For us alone forever should be free. 
So that is why, that in Von Bemstorff's note. 
He says that all the pledges HoUweg wrote, 
Were worthy lies, that by them he might gain, 

265 



FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 

Some time to build more U-boats, that again 
We might resume our * 'rightfulness" at sea, 
And drown more people; fill our hearts with glee. 

As women shriek, and little children cry, 
As transports sink, and sick and wounded die, 
We give no warning to the ones we kill, 
Because for them we cherish no good will. 
But as for Wilson, our Von Bemstorff's friend, 
To him we gladly special grace extend. 
One ship a week we tell him he may sail. 
To Falmouth port, an English port of hail. 

But on each Sunday such ship must arrive 
And sail on Wednesday, if her crew survive; 
And we must dictate how her hold is filled. 
How she is marked, and how her cargo's billed. 
And just what route her captain's told to steer 
And if he wanders, then we greatly fear 
This coimtry's flag we order must be flown. 
To hell, with crew and ships, must all be blown. 

But how's our gracious treatment been repaid, 
Wilson, alas, no longer seems afraid. 
In tnmipet tones, which e'en our marrow chill. 
He has refused surrender to our will. 
He's nailed "Old Glory" to each warship's mast; 
He is preparing now, with zeal and fast. 
His people stand behind him almost all; 

266 



FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 

We fear that they'll respond to such a call; 
Saving of course, Bill Bryan, who for one 
Thinks it unwise to cross our deadly zone. 
The land of Grant and Lincoln still seems brave 

and free; 
Perhaps we erred once more in claiming all the sea. 



267 



XLV 

SONG TO J. P. T. 

I. 

Whatever rich blessings the Fates held in store 
At my birth, they have given the best; 
And while it is mine, I will sigh for no more 
Nor will care if they hoard all the rest. 

II. 

If of fortune or station I find Vm bereft, 
Of such crosses I'll never complain; 
If only this dearest of treasures be left 
The sweet grace of your friendship remain. 

III. 

When the hurricanes rage, and the stormy waves rise, 
As the mariner yearns for the land; 
So, in absence, I long for the glance of your eyes 
And the tender, warm clasp of your hand. 

IV. 

Like the star, which dark clouds seek in vain to 

o'ercast. 
Her sweet mission the gloom to dispel — 
Your friendship has shed a fond gleam o'er my past; 
May it brighten my future as well. 

268 



XLVI 
SONG TO J. P. T. 

May I4thj 1881. 

This is the gladsome season of the year 

When earth and sky their brightest colors wear. 

Wooed by the warm persuasions of the sun, 

The May-flowers — by his fervent pleadings won — 

Break from the cold embrace of hindering clay, 

And lift their lovely faces to the day — 

The modest violet opes her petals fair. 

And tells a fragrant message to the air. 

The meadow now is green, a sweet expanse, 
The dogwood blooms, the rippling brooklets dance; 
While drunk with rapture, every singing bird 
From budding bough and verdant hedge is heard. 
Now generous Nature blessings does not stay, 
But drops her richest in the lap of May. 
And lest this favored month should have too few 
She lavished still her sweetest gift in you. 



269 



XLVII 
VALENTINE TO J. P. T. 

February 14th, 1884. 
I. 

My love is sweet with wavy hair, 
A subtle fragrance lurking there. 
Her rounded cheek is smooth and fair. 
And when I clasp her to my heart 
Quickly her boimding pulses start, 
The shyest blushes mantling there. 
What is the need for her to speak? 
I read my fortune in her cheek, 
My tender love. 

11. 

My love is tall; and never yet 
Was shapely head more proudly set, 
Nor have such throat and shoulders met 
In softly curving lines of grace. 
And how she turns her queenly face 
And smiles on me, I'll ne'er forget. 
What is the need of words the while? 
I read my fortune in her smile. 
My gracious love. 

270 



VALENTINE TO J. P. T. 

III. 

My love is true; with candid eyes 
That lcx)k on wrong with sad surprise. 
In their clear depths sweet frankness lies — 
God grant that in the coming years, 
No act of mine may bring them tears; 
No cause to dim their brightness rise. 
But when she looks — though mute by chance, 
I read my fortune in her glance, 
My faithful love. 



271 



XLVIII 

THE DIFFERENCE 

Out in the woods by a misty stream 

Where the shade's so dense that a bold sunbeam, 

If it comes to play with the waters sweet, 

Loses all its burning feverish heat; 

And can only glisten with glint of gold 

The rounded tops of the ripples cold. 

It was there I found some violets grew 

With their scented petals fresh with dew. 

I was so tired and worn that day, 

Fd have gladly changed with them to stay, 

Forever there, with my hot cheek pressed 

On Nature's kindly mossy breast. 

But I quite forgot the winter snows 

The rain, and the blustering wind that blows. 

Out in the city I went to dine. 
With a very particular friend of mine. 
She was the dearest of all to me 
With a flush on her cheeks like the fresh sweet pea; 
With a glance in her eyes as of jewels bright, 
Yet tempered too, by a tender light, 
Like that which shines from a misty stream. 
When its waves are kissed by the moon's soft beam, 

272 



THE DIFFERENCE 

And I wouldn't have changed — she was so complete 

From her shining hair to her dainty feet, — 

A single thing if I had been divine — 

Save only her heart, — I'd have made that mine. 

Well some violets clustered over her heart 

Pinned to her gown with a jeweled dart, 

And as they rose on her bosom's swell, 

She lowered her red ripe lips to tell 

How sweet they were, that she loved them so, 

In her vibrant tones, quite clear, but low. 

And again, I longed to take their place. 

I'd have given my soul to lay my face 

On my lady's gentle tender breast. 

And to feel her lips on my forehead pressed. 

For then, what would matter the winter's snows, 

The rain, and the blustering wind that blows. 



273 



XLIX 
THE RIVALS* 

The umbrella and the young man are both very much in love with 
the young lady — the umbrella being much the bolder of the two pays 
his addresses first. 

The Umbrella Speaks 

I. 

When the sky is overcast 
And the rain is falling fast, 
If you'll let me, gentle lady 
I will shield you till it's past; 
Spread above your lovely head 
The rain shall beat on me instead. 

II. 

If you chance upon the street 
In the summer's burning heat. 
If you'll only think to take me 
I will shade you Lady sweet. 
Spread above your lovely head 
The sun shall beat on me instead. 

III. 

Listen to me while I woo 
I will render service true. 
Will you take me gentle lady? 
You will ne'er such choosing rue. 

'Written in connection with a birthday gift of an umbrella. Ed. 

274 



THE RIVALS 

Not a drop of rain shall wet you; 
Not a single sunbeam fret you. 

The young man is filled with despair at the eloquent -pleading of 
his rivals but finally mustering up courage — 

The Young Man Speaks 

I. 

That can guard you from the rain 
Till the skies are clear again; 
But against the shaft of sorrow 
Every earthly shield is vain. 
I can't guard you from it, true; 
But it's dart shall wound me too. 

II. 

Though the hot sun fiercely glare 
Soon the cooling evening air 
Will restore you gentle lady; 
But you can't get rid of care. 
I can't guard you from it, true; 
But each care I'll bear with you. 

III. 
Listen to me while I woo. 
I'll be constant, tender true. 
Will you take me gentle lady? 
You will ne'er such choosing rue. 
Not a sorrow, but I'll share it. 
Not a care, but I'll help bear it. 

The young lady hesitates a longy long time^ but being a grasping 
person^ finally accepts them both^ to the great surprise of the rivals, 

275 



INSIDE OUT 

We were riding home in a carriage, 
From a dinner served for two. 

I was prating of love and marriage, 
As the foolish often do. 

Outside it was cold and raining, 
But within it was simply grand — 

For the dearest one was deigning 
To let me hold her hand. 

I looked through the window weeping 
At the blows the rough rain struck, 

And my heart within was leaping 
At my rare and fine good luck. 

For there, I was close beside her. 
And the whole world out in the wet. 

I could not be denied her 
Since I held her white hand yet. 

But I found when we reached her dwelling, 
That my hopes took a sudden fall. 

And my fancy skyward swelling. 
Was darkened with a pall. 

276 



INSIDE OUT 

For I learned she expected another, 
And so grieved that he did not call, 

That I knew, though I might be brother, 
I was lover not at all. 

So I left her doorsteps sadly. 
And without a shred of doubt, 

As the rain still beat down badly. 
She had turned me inside out. 



277 



LI 



CONTENTMENT 

I. 

"'I wish I were a full blown rose," 

A foolish rosebud sighed, 

"With every lovely charm exposed 

My petals open wide; 

The sunbeam loves the rose the best; 

The wind would v/oo me, then to rest. 

The rain drops sparldes on my breast." 

II. 

"Alas! I wish I were a bud," 

Complained a stately rose, 

"My tinted leaves are fading fast. 

My perfume fainter grows; 

The raindrops bruise my petals fair; 

The rough wind scatters them in air; 

They wither in the sun*s fierce glare." 

III. 
Pray learn the lesson little maid. 
Before the summer's o'er 
The foolish bud will be a rose, 
The rose a bud no more; 
Oh! do not like the buds forget. 
That in the future you'll regret 
The foolishness that is yours as yet. 

278 



LII 

LITTLE POND FARM 

Tall pines and glens and maples, 
Spreading chestnuts here and there, 
A clear sun, a sky of sapphire 
And a crisp yet balmy air; 
And granite boulders breaking 
The meadows green expanse. 
In the distance shining water. 
And where'er you turn your glance; 
Golden browns and greens and purples 

And the sumac's crimson flush, 
For the mighty painter Autumn's 
Touched the landscape with her brush. 
But far sweeter than the prospect 
With its beauty and its charm. 
Is the gracious kindly welcome 
We received at Lippitt's farm. 

Brilliant skies are oft o'erclouded; 
Winds grow chill and bright leaves fall. 
And the most alluring landscape 
Winter darkens with his pall. 
So I'll sing of things enduring 

279 



LITTLE POND FARM 

Kindly thoughts and kindly deeds; 

Gentle hearts forever eager 

To supply another's needs. 

Oh! far finer than the landscape 

With its beauty and its charm, 

Is the gracious, thoughtful treatment, 

We received at Lippitt's farm. 



280 



LIII 
CHRISTMAS 

A TOAST 

And now I stand with brimming cup 

And bid you fill your glasses up 

And drink to Christmas, young and hoary. 

The theme of gentle song and story. 

A toast to fine old Kris I give; 

May his sweet custom always live. 

And now dear friends, it's my desire, 
That words of mine our hearts inspire 
To feed the blessed Christmas fire 
And make it flare, the whole year through, 
For then my songs will not be vain; 
For this is true. 

If we remember him who died 
On painful cross, with riven side, 
Sweet peace and comfort to provide 
For fallen race, 

Why then this joyous feast tonight 
Is but a milestone on our flight. 
Toward peace and grace. 

281 



CHRISTMAS, A TOAST 

And so my friends and children dear, 
Let's give and take a Christmas cheer; 
And in this time of joyous fun, 
Let's think of Dickens' Christmas hymn 
And say with thanks, like Tiny Tim 
"God bless us every one!" 



282 



In Memoriam 



LIV 

TRIBUTE TO THE LATE MRS. 
WILLIAM EDWARDS 

Reprinted from Cleveland Town Topics, 

If charity, unselfish giving, 
If noble life be worth the living; 
If eager helpfulness unbought, 
If kindly deed, if loving thought; 
If gentle wish to soothe, to share 
Another's sorrow, pain or care; 
If cheerful word, if sunny smile 
In this sad world are worth the while, 
If heart from pride and envy freed; 
If quick response to every need, 
If outstretched hand, if willing feet; 
If love, if sympathy, be sweet; 
If shining attributes like these 
Entitles one to sweet surcease 
Of toil, to lasting joy and peace; 
Then, surely, dear old friend of mine, 
Such blessed recompense is thine. 

The Master knew how you would grieve, 
Should grim death order you to leave 
Your weeping loved ones here, beliind; 

285 



IN MEMORIAM MRS. WM. EDWARDS 

He silenced death, did Master kind. 

He knew that parting such as this 

For you, would shadow Heaven's bliss; 

So he decreed that at the end 

You'd fall asleep on arm of friend; 

That vanquished Death, robbed of all sting, 

To you, but rest and peace should bring; 

That tired eyes should see no more, 

'Til they beheld on golden shore; 

Those other loved ones gone before. 

Oh! surely, dear, old friend of mine, 

A blessed recompense is thine! 



286 



THE PENTON PRESS CO. 

CLEVELAND 

DECEMBER, NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO 



